Although Jack Flaherty made 15 starts for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2024 after coming over in a trade from the Detroit Tigers, he was still able to form a relationship with manager Dave Roberts in that relatively short amount of time.
That was evident by their interaction at theL.A. Chargers game on Nov. 25.
In Flaherty’s 10 regular season starts and five postseason starts for the Dodgers this past season, their interactions on the mound were limited. Roberts had a clear vision for what he wanted out of each of Flaherty’s starts and didn’t leave much room for debate when coming out of the dugout.
Flaherty averaged around five innings per outing before the game was handed over to the bullpen. He reached at least five innings in nine of his 10 regular season starts and his longest was 7.1 innings on Sept. 8 against the Cleveland Guardians.
His highest pitch count of the season came in Aug. 9 game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, which was the only time he was able to advocate for himself staying in the game, according to his appearance on The Herd with Colin Cowherd:
“No. Every time he’s come out, he has signaled before he got out there to bring in the bullpen. There was only one time where we had a discussion. It was my first home start against the Pirates, and I got through five innings and he comes over to me and I know he’s going to tell me, ‘Hey, you’re done.’
“I just kind of looked at him and was like, ‘No.’ He was like, ‘What do you mean no?’ I was like, ‘I’m good.’ I felt like that day I could throw 150 pitches and was going to be fine and had plenty in the tank. He was like, ‘OK,’ and he walked back and I went out and threw 110 pitches or whatever it was. He came out to get me; I didn’t finish the inning.”
The occurrence was an anomaly for a starting pitcher under Roberts’ tenure, baffling other members of the Dodgers’ pitching staff. Apart from that instance, Roberts was direct with Flaherty when relieving him from an outing:
“Some of the pitchers were like, ‘We haven’t seen that where we let a guy go over 100 pitches. It was your second start here.’ I was like, ‘I don’t know, man. I felt like I could throw 150 pitches today.’ Doc, to his credit, was like, ‘OK. If you say you got it, sure.’ And he let me go out and I pitched well for that inning. Didn’t get out of it and he came and got me at the right time.
“That was the only time. Otherwise, the discussions on the mound, we didn’t have any. It was usually, ‘Good job. We’re going to get you.’ Or I didn’t pitch well and it was like, ‘We’re going to pick you up and go win this game.’”
The results worked out in the Dodgers favor more often than not as they had a 7-3 record in games started by Flaherty during the regular season. The postseason was a slightly different story in terms of his effectiveness, but the Dodgers still managed to win three of five games started by him.
Jack Flaherty collaborates with Erewhon for charity
Through mutual connections, Flaherty was given the opportunity to create his own signature smoothy at the high-end supermarket Erewhon. Sales of the smoothy aided in raising money for the Tyler Skaggs Foundation, which Flaherty is a big proponent of.
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