The Dodgers Know Better

Honoring Fernando and Tommy John

The Dodgers beat me, that’s for sure. It’s not a feat that earns them a trophy — some would argue it’s no feat at all — but they’ve reminded me of an important lesson: Imperfection does not disqualify a team from postseason play.

Since April, I’ve drafted various half-baked explorations as to how the Dodgers top-heavy roster would (or wouldn’t) perform in October. I suppose I had the common sense never to publish. Perhaps the inherent flaws of my hypothesis precluded a proper story.

Two weeks after the Padres appeared poised to eliminate Los Angeles, the Dodgers — fortified by their own flaws — were celebrating a National League pennant.

Remembering Fernando

Prior to Game 1 of the World Series, there will be a moment of silence in memory of Fernando Valenzuela. The last time the Yankees and Dodgers faced off in the Fall Classic, Valenzuela was the winning pitcher in Game 3. With his team trailing two games to none, he threw a 147-pitch complete game. He allowed four runs on nine hits — and sprinkled in seven walks!

The game has changed just a little since that 1981 season in which the Mexican left-hander won both the National League Rookie of the Year and Cy Young Award. I’ll remember that he left the game in a better place than he found it. He was the star of the show. Fernandomania had me glued to the television, whether for the NBC Game of the Week or This Week In Baseball.

I spoke last night to Rodrigo Lopez, who pitched for the Padres, Orioles, Rockies, Phillies, Diamondbacks, and Cubs during an 11-year career. Born and raised in a small town south of Mexico City, Lopez shared that he wasn’t even familiar with baseball before Fernandomania took North America by storm. Quickly, Valenzuela became his idol.

I’ll divulge more from that conversation soon, but for now I want to share a moment that occurred shortly after a 19-year-old Lopez, then a minor leaguer in the Padres organization, met Valenzuela for the first time.

During Spring Training in 1995, Rick Sutcliffe introduced the two Mexican pitchers. “I didn’t know what to say,” Lopez recalls. “I was in shock.” Shortly after that brief encounter, Lopez returned to his hotel in Peoria, Ariz. The phone in his room began to ring. Here’s my interpretation of what happened next:

Rodrigo Lopez answers the phone. In Spanish, a man begins speaking.

Caller: Hi, Rodrigo.

Lopez: Yes.

Caller: Do you want to go get dinner?

Lopez [slightly confused]: Yes, but who is this?

Caller: Oh, I’m sorry. This is Fernando.

Lopez [still confused]: Fernando who?

Caller: Fernando Valenzuela!

That night, the greatest Mexican baseball player swung by the Padres minor league hotel to retrieve a teenage pitcher — a pitcher who had played only soccer before learning of him — and take him to dinner, along with Teddy Higuera and other established players from their native country.

“It was a pretty kind of Fernando, you know — being the superstar that he was — taking a kid from rookie ball in his first year in the states to spend time with him at the dinner table,” Lopez says.

We are all lucky that Fernando toed the rubber. His passing is a great loss for the game.

Screwball Fraternity

In the Dodgers’ postgame celebration on Sunday, Max Muncy praised pitcher Brent Honeywell.

Honeywell was once a top prospect in the Tampa Bay organization. He was the MVP of the 2017 Futures Game, and he garnered extra attention because he threw a screwball. Few pitchers still throw the scroogie because of the extreme stress it places on the arm. The pitch requires extreme pronation of the arm, quickly snapping the wrist away from the glove side. Valenzuela dominated hitters with his screwball when he first arrived on the scene.

While the Mets bullpen earned the praise for keeping the Dodgers at bay during a 12-6 win in Game 5 of the NLCS, Honeywell was the erstwhile unnoticed hero of the game. In relief of Jack Flaherty, the screwballer pitched 4.2 innings, giving the Dodgers pen the night off. (Note: Anthony Banda faced one batter in the bottom of the eighth, so not everyone really had the night off.)

Two days later, the Dodgers bullpen game went as planned, and LA clinched the series. The whole-staff approach was enabled by Honeywell’s outing in New York. His teammates did the rest in Game 6. Muncy seemed to appreciate the effort in real time. The Dodgers weaknesses have become their strengths.

Tommy John, the pitcher

The 1981 Dodgers had 37 players appear at some point during the season, 24 position players and 13 pitchers.

Last time the Yanks and Dodgers met in the World Series, Tommy John was a 38-year-old hurler. He was six seasons and three All-Star selections removed from the elbow surgery that bears his name. During that span, John put 1,300 innings on his reconstructed ulnar collateral ligament.

In 1977 and ’78, he was a member of the Dodgers teams that ultimately lost to the Yankees. In 1981, he was on the Yankees team that lost to LA. If the Dodgers win this year, they should award John a ring for his impact on the current staff.

The Dodgers’ 40-man roster includes 30 pitchers. (Seven of them are on the 60-day injured list, a designation that essentially means they do not count against the roster limit.) Of those 30 pitchers, 16 of them have undergone Tommy John surgery. Two of them, Walker Buehler and Daniel Hudson, have gone under the knife twice.

Los Angeles had 13 pitchers on their active roster for the NLCS. Those arms represented nine TJ surgeries. The Dodgers shuffled their roster prior to the World Series. Guess what? Two pitchers off, two pitchers on, and the Tommy John count stayed the same.

And I’m not even counting Shohei Ohtani.

It’s a good time for the entire game to remember and honor the late Dr. Frank Jobe and Tommy John (the pitcher). Their courage, skill, and legacy will be on display every game.

Now let’s play ball!