Revisiting Andy Pages

I opined here that I would platoon him, and maybe when he cools down you do. But he and Landon Knack have saved the Dodgers the last 3 weeks.

With Bobby Miller, Blake Trienan, Kershaw, Sheehan, Gonsolin, Dustin May, Graterol, and Buehler out, LA was pretty short on quality arms. Jame Paxton has been better than expected, Glasnow hasn't broken in half yet, and Landon Knack has given LA 3 quality starts with a 2.81 ERA. That is 3 weeks worth of time he bought LA.

Meanwhile. James Outman has sucked. Chris Taylor has found a way to suck worse, and Jason Heyward is injured and won't heal. Kike Hernandez is a shell of his former self. LA might have the best hitting C, 1B, DH, SS combo ever, but they had a lot of holes. Muncy doesn't look great. King a lot. Lux isn't back or his bat isn't. LA has 4 megastars in Ohtani, Betts, Freeman and Smith and a bunch of slop.

Fast forward to Pages. With the lefty heavy lineup LA fields with Freeman, Ohtani, Lux, Muncy and Outman, LA really needed some solid RH bats. They have Betts and Smith. That's it. They obviously need OF production. Lefties have killed LA the last few years.

Teoscar Hernandez was brought in to smash lefties and he has. Solid pick up. Pages comes out of nowhere and hits 3 HR, and is hitting 333 with a 9 game hitting streak. Unusual for a rookie. As a righty. Suddenly LA is getting production from Smith, Betts, Pages and a bit from hernandez against lefties. Then they line up Ohtani Freeman, Muncy Lux and maybe Outman versus righties.

IMO Pages by himself has been a huge factor in 2-3 Dodger wins in the last 3 weeks. Meanwhile Landon Knack has kept them out of bullpen games. Has pitched 5.2 innings per outing and done so at 2.81.

And around the corner, Walker Buehler pitches for the first time this week. Trienan should join the staff in a couple weeks. And Miller should be back 2-3 weeks after that and Kershaw about a few weeks after that, around 7/4. I don't think we see Sheehan or Graterol back this year. In fact, I am betting both are heading for the knife. If so, I wish they'd just get it over with to be back opening day 2025. Not sure what to expect of Dustin May. Hoping he isn't turning into a perpetual inury guy who spends 5-10 years being hurt and then quits. We are about 3 years into that cycle now.

Either way, LA is deep and Pages and Knack have been huge bright spots as rookies.