LOS ANGELES \u2014 Dave Roberts needed to hear from the man he still\u00a0calls his closer, so he pulled Edwin D\u00edaz aside on Friday afternoon. D\u00edaz, booed off the mound a night earlier after his third blown save in a week, was his most rested option for the ninth inning. Before inserting him into that spot, Roberts wanted to gauge where D\u00edaz\u2019s head was at.<\/p>\n
It was a brief conversation. D\u00edaz, the smiley $69 million closer for the Los Angeles Dodgers whose entrance is marked by trumpets and whose exit Thursday was filled with jeers, needed it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s going to help with my confidence, 100 percent,\u201d D\u00edaz told The Athletic. \u201cThey keep trusting me. If it was in another position, maybe they put another guy, or give me a break. But they keep trusting me, and give me the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roberts gave D\u00edaz the ball on Friday night because he lacked another option<\/a>. His bullpen was gassed<\/a>. D\u00edaz was not, and had already been working with coaches on refining his delivery. The Dodgers are content to play it out with D\u00edaz as closer the rest of the way, believing the best version of their October pitching staff still has an effective D\u00edaz as part of it.<\/p>\n D\u00edaz hit a batter, walked two more and was down to his final hitter when Milwaukee\u2019s Joey Ortiz stepped into the batter\u2019s box with two outs and the bases loaded, with the Dodgers clinging to a 3-1 lead. D\u00edaz got the save, but threw just 11 of his 26 pitches for strikes.<\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t pretty,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cI watched the inning too.\u201d<\/p>\n The recalibration of D\u00edaz is underway as the Dodgers try to get their closer, who has a 10.66 ERA, back on track. The Dodgers hope that Friday night\u2019s roller-coaster outing boosts D\u00edaz\u2019s confidence, and that the mechanical tweaks that began in earnest on Friday afternoon could return Di\u00e1z to his heights as one of the most dominant arms in the sport.<\/p>\n D\u00edaz knows when he\u2019s on a roll. For years, his fastball and slider have been dominant, with each pitch capable of generating a swing-and-miss when needed. Those pitches were located and exploded out of his hand with movement. D\u00edaz\u2019s ability to generate extension down the mound gave hitters little time to react.<\/p>\n However, through 15 appearances as a Dodger, it\u2019s been a matter of which pitch D\u00edaz doesn\u2019t have on any given night. When he blew a save against the Diamondbacks on Aug. 7, his slider was flat and got crushed. On Thursday against the Brewers, his fastball didn\u2019t move or go anywhere he wanted it to, often drifting over the middle of the plate, leading to hard contact.<\/p>\n Edwin D\u00edaz’s arsenal, 25-26<\/p>\n PITCHYEARBASLGWHIFF%<\/p>\n FB<\/p>\n 2025<\/p>\n .133<\/p>\n .200<\/p>\n 39.4<\/p>\n SL<\/p>\n 2025<\/p>\n .179<\/p>\n .269<\/p>\n 44.0<\/p>\n FB<\/p>\n 2026<\/p>\n .379<\/p>\n .690<\/p>\n 16.4<\/p>\n SL<\/p>\n 2026<\/p>\n .333<\/p>\n .533<\/p>\n 28.1<\/p>\n D\u00edaz said he\u2019s not delivering each pitch like he\u2019s used to. The Dodgers have picked up on what D\u00edaz has also noticed when reviewing his outings on video \u2014 that D\u00edaz has gotten too rotational or \u201ceast-west\u201d rather than going \u201cnorth-south\u201d down the mound.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a red flag,\u201d D\u00edaz said.<\/p>\n The quality of D\u00edaz\u2019s stuff told the story. His arm slot has dropped from 23 degrees in 2023 to 20 degrees in 2024 and 19 degrees last year before dropping steeply to 15 degrees in 2026.<\/p>\n The cause is uncertain, though a drop in arm slot can often result from trying to guard against injury. D\u00edaz may have been doing that in April before he needed arthroscopic surgery to remove loose bodies from his left elbow. Whatever the cause, it\u2019s been a difficult habit to correct, and something the Dodgers emphasize with him in his work.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I\u2019m consistent, my fastball will be better,\u201d D\u00edaz said. \u201cMy slider will be better. \u201cWhen I start getting weak contact and start getting chases, I know my pitches are playing better.\u201d<\/p>\n The Dodgers are giving D\u00edaz a chance to work through this, just as they have with struggling veterans in years past. It took until the end of the regular season for Tanner Scott to be removed from the team\u2019s ninth-inning plans last year. And they rolled out Michael Conforto in left field throughout the regular season before leaving him off every postseason roster. When the Dodgers removed Craig Kimbrel from the closer role in 2022, they waited until Sept. 23 to pull the plug.<\/p>\n They do have options for replacing D\u00edaz as closer, though Roberts and the Dodgers brass do not want to deploy them yet. That list of choices will likely increase in October when the club hopes to have Roki Sasaki, Justin Wrobleski and possibly others in its postseason bullpen.<\/p>\n This is still a relief group that would likely be at its best if D\u00edaz can recapture his old form. So the Dodgers will give him that opportunity.<\/p>\n \u201c(That is) everything,\u201d D\u00edaz said. \u201cThey give me everything because they are giving me the chance to keep being successful in my position. So every time they give me the ball, I\u2019ve just got to do my job. \u2026 I\u2019ve been having a good game, (then a) bad game, good game, bad game. I have to find a way to keep pitching good.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2014 Dave Roberts needed to hear from the man he still\u00a0calls his closer, so he pulled…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":816708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[2323,363,99],"class_list":["post-816707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=816707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/816708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=816707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=816707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=816707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}