A week ago, Tyler Glasnow was beginning to turn back into a question mark.
So, the Dodgers sent him home and hoped he would reset.
Last Saturday, the All-Star pitcher looked all out of sorts in a four-inning, four-run and frankly foreboding start during the team’s visit to Miami.
He was battling his mechanics. He was stretching out his long-bothersome back. And, most concerningly, he was losing the confident demeanor the Dodgers had seen when he first returned from his latest extended stint on the injured list last month.
Thus, instead of accompanying the team on the second leg of its road trip this week in Cincinnati, Glasnow traveled immediately back to Los Angeles the day after his clunker against the Marlins.
No extra flight. No added time on the road. Just a week where he could focus on his delivery and try to keep his season from once again slipping off track.
“He got back on Pacific Standard Time, in his own bed, one leg of travel versus the two,” manager Dave Roberts said Friday afternoon. “He threw his bullpen a few days ago. That went great. So he’s dialed in.”
In a six-inning, two-run, 10-strikeout start in Friday’s 8-2 win over the San Francisco Giants, there was still more dialing in left for Glasnow to do.
He hung a curveball in the second inning that Jung Hoo Lee belted for a home run.
He lost his feel pitching from the stretch after a leadoff single in the third, giving up another run that briefly put the Dodgers behind before they stormed back with five home runs –– including four in the eighth inning alone –– from their recently resurgent offense.
The important thing, though, was that Glasnow felt better.
With his health. With his throw. With his ability to get completely synced up in time for the playoffs.
“I think I feel relatively consistent. It’s just a matter of, sometimes I’m not going to feel good, sometimes I will,” Glasnow said. “Today, I think it was a step in the right direction. I think it’s better than feeling really good for a long time before [the playoffs]. I’d rather kind of feel it, work through some stuff and have a good one right before playoffs. So I think I’m in a good spot right now.”
That might sound counter-intuitive for a pitcher who could be crucial to the Dodgers’ postseason plans. It might be rationalization from an 11-year veteran who has never made it through a full regular season healthy.
Then again, it’s a blueprint that worked well enough for Glasnow last year, when he only felt his mechanics click in the last few weeks before the start of the playoffs yet went on to post a 1.69 ERA in six October outings.
“It is just making sure he’s feeling good, he’s healthy, which he is,” Roberts said. “So now it’s just letting him go do what he does and bet on the talent to perform. That’s where I think we all feel good, especially Tyler right now, just knowing the health and where the head’s at, all that stuff. We’re in a good spot.”
Roberts struck a decidedly different tone after Glasnow’s start last week, saying then that the right-hander “didn’t feel great coming into the game as far as kind of overall body.”
That revelation raised alarm bells regarding the oft-injured 33-year-old –– who had already missed more than three months this season with a back spasms problem that lasted far longer than initially anticipated.
His absence in Cincinnati was also conspicuous, turning Friday’s outing into something of a late-season litmus test.
“This is an important start,” Roberts said beforehand. “He knows it.”
The manager’s evaluation afterward?
“I thought he did a good job of making pitches when he needed to,” Roberts said, encouraged by Glasnow’s ability to get swing-and-miss, as well as the way he retired 10 of his final 11 batters in a 98-pitch performance.
For his part, Glasnow downplayed whatever concerns had been lingering about his health of late.
He acknowledged he felt “not great” last week. He cited the cross-country flight as perhaps getting him out of whack. But he also noted that, “in the course of a season, you’re not always going to feel good.”
“It wasn’t anything crazy,” he added. “But I definitely feel better now than I did then.”
At this point, that will have to be enough for the Dodgers. Come the start of the postseason, they will be counting on him to be an effective member of their rotation.
“Right now, I feel pretty good,” Glasnow said. “We worked on some stuff after that last start. Just tried to keep for this start, take it in the next start. And then hopefully everything is feeling good for playoffs.”
