For about four starts, it looks like the Dodgers had something in Lance Lynn.
Immediately after the trade, Lynn righted the ship. He allowed just five runs over 25 innings, and while he gave up four homers, they were all solo shots, and three came after the Dodgers led the A's 7-0. By throwing seven shutout innings against the Brewers on Aug. 17, he tied together homerless appearances for the first time all season.
Over the remainder of the season, the Lynn from the White Sox returned. He had some quality starts, he had some duds, but either way, the long ball remained present, as he didn't make it out of a start without yielding one.
- First 21 starts: 119.2 IP, 130 H, 28 HR, 45 BB, 144 K, 6.47 ERA
- Next 4 starts: 25 IP, 17 H, 4 HR, 5 BB, 25 K, 1.44 ERA
- Final 7 starts: 39 IP, 42 H, 12 HR, 17 BB, 22 K, 6.23 ERA
And while this could be construed as carving a season into samples that fit a predetermined narrative, he then up and served up four solo shots to the Diamondbacks in Game 3 of the Dodgers' 4-2 loss to Arizona.
In the end, Lynn finished the regular season with a 5.73 ERA, and that feels right. He couldn't have possibly been as bad as he was with the White Sox, but as long as he kept serving up meatballs on such a regular schedule, he couldn't have been all that much better. Factoring in the postseason, Lynn gave up 48 homers over 186⅔ innings, which would tie Jose Lima's 48 homers over 196⅓ innings in 2000 for the most allowed by any pitcher who wasn't Bert Blyleven.
(Blyleven allowed 50 homers over 271⅔ innings in 1986, followed by 49 homers over 280⅓ innings during the Twins' championship season.)
Despite this notable flaw, Lynn actually gave the Dodgers what they needed during a pitching shortage, in the sense that they won nine of his 11 starts and he averaged nearly six innings per, but having him start an elimination game easily asked too much of him. Now we turn our attention to Nick Nastrini, and it'd be funny if he essentially served the same purpose as a Dane Dunning, just five years later.
Spare Parts
Speaking of which, it's hard to compare the Dodgers and White Sox without insulting the latter:
“The Dodgers are very good at development,” Nastrini said, “and when you’re so good at development, you have an insane amount of players who are very, very good. There’s a little bit of a roadblock in the system.
“Here, there’s a much more clear path to the big leagues and getting to Chicago as quickly as possible. That’s kind of the way I’ve been viewing it.”
I was all for the Atlanta Braves winning the World Series because it would 1) reward regular-season excellence and 2) make me look smart for my preseason pick, but I swung to the Phillies after seeing the Braves' pitiful understanding of what "off the record" means. Orlando Arcia yelled "attaboy Harper" with reporters around the clubhouse after his baserunning gamble backfired to end Game 2, and Harper responded with an iconic homer in Game 3. The Braves should've just been content to call it even, but instead they just had weird, sad lectures. Go Phils.
Jim Callis found a scout (from another team) who put a 70 on Colson Montgomery's game power, which showed up in the form of his first Arizona Fall League homer on Thursday:
While the White Sox have done everything possible to drain the enjoyment from the 2005 World Series, at least everybody who witnessed it knows what it feels to have experienced a championship. This story about the 75th anniversary of Cleveland's last title brought back memories of the Before Times.
