What We Learned from the Yankees vs. Dodgers World Series Re-Match
The National League sure seems better than the American League right now.
Hi friends-
Some quick announcements before we dive in.
I was down with Covid the week my Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover story on Livvy Dunne came out. When SI Swim contacted me out of the blue to write this story I thought maybe they knew me as a baseball writer and wanted me to also write about Livvy’s big baseball boyfriend, Paul Skenes, in the story.
But because the people I worked with are awesome, I didn’t even have to tell them I wasn’t interested in writing about Someone’s Girlfriend, as they were on the exact same page about Livvy being a force in her own right. I didn’t mention him in the story and they didn’t care. (Again, no offense to him because he is also great. But this was Livvy’s time to shine)
She was kind and answered my questions thoughtfully. She is smart, self-made, and totally underestimated— my favorite kind of person. And though it was a relatively short feature (about 1000 words), I had fun doing it and was super impressed by the project head, editing team and their communication—which almost never happens. So, yay, SI Swim! Hire me to do this again next year lol.
Also, a wonderful reader named Don has purchased five copies of my Dodgers book to send out to the first five people who reply to this email and ask! This is a big deal because Don is a Giants fan. Just let me know if you want a free, signed and personalized book and it’ll be coming your way soon! Thank you, Don!
I’ve spent the past three days immersed in Dodgers/Yankees, and the series….. did not play out the way I thought it would. It was actually kind of a dud, no matter what the ESPN Sunday Night Baseball broadcast would have you believe.
In case you didn’t know, the Dodgers currently have 15 players on the injured list. This warrants another piece, but suffice to say it’s a two-pronged problem involving signing (or trading for) high risk, high reward MLB pitchers who are more prone to blowing out (ahem, Tyler Glasnow), and the development program they are putting the guys they draft through to get them to throw harder and with more spin.
The latter problem is more concerning to me, and I’m not sure how many more of their young prospects have to undergo season ending elbow or shoulder surgery for them to re-think the Driveline/weighted ball stuff that is clearly good for adding a few velo ticks on the fastball for sick online videos but horrible for keeping pitchers healthy by the time they reach the major leagues. The Dodgers may boast that their minor league system throws the hardest, but look where that has gotten them in real life. Nowhere good!
Anyway, I figured the mighty Yankees, who own the second-best record in the AL would wreck Los Angeles in games 1 and 2, as they had Max Fried against a still-trying-to-find-it post Tommy John surgery Tony Gonsolin, and rookie sensation Will Warren against Landon Knack, who is the 13th best starting pitcher on the Dodgers 40-man roster. Seriously, look it up.
It was no surprise that Gonsolin got shelled by the mighty Yankees offense to start Friday’s game, giving up 5 earned runs before recording nine outs. But then he did something that should be the blueprint for the Dodgers scotch-tape-and-chicken -wire pitching staff going forward until reinforcements arrive at the all-star break: