Dodgers’ Yency Almonte hoping recent changes can lead to increased bullpen role

LOS ANGELES ― The turning point of Yency Almonte’s season might prove to be a game he’d rather forget.

Pitching against the Minnesota Twins on May 15, Almonte was called on to hold a three-run lead in the eighth inning. He got ahead of Trevor Larnach, a left-handed hitter who was 0-for-3 to that point in the game ― first 0-and-1, then 1-and-2. Then he did something interesting. He threw a slider.

Right-handed pitchers like Almonte rarely throw sliders against left-handed hitters. The reason is simple. Sliders, especially the kind popularly dubbed “sweepers,” produce a tremendous amount of right-to-left movement. To a right-handed batter, the pitch sweeps away from their body, deceiving their eyes into looking like a strike before hurtling out of reach.

To a left-handed batter, the pitch is usually less of a mystery. Our eyes have less difficulty following an object coming closer to us than an object moving farther away. Depending on the trajectory of the slider, the pitch might even play naturally into the path of a left-handed batter’s swing.

That helps explain why right-handed pitchers throw sliders about half as often to lefties (15.3% at week’s end) as they do to righties (29%).

Almonte’s slider tailed down and in to Larnach. Will Smith caught the pitch just above the ground as Larnach barely checked his swing. Larnach hit the next pitch, a fastball down the middle of the plate, for a three-run home run that tied the game 6-6.

For a moment, the sequence looked like another setback for a pitcher who burst out of Triple-A to become a viable high-leverage, late-innings option for the Dodgers last season.

With hindsight, the check-swing slider looks like more of a turning point than the meatball that followed. Almonte has faced nine left-handed hitters since facing Larnach. They’re 1-for-8 with a single and a walk. It’s a small sample size. It’s also the first sign that Almonte’s months-long plan to transform his approach, and become the high-leverage reliever he was a year ago, has a chance to succeed.

“My main thing is just trusting my stuff to throw a strike,” Almonte said. “For some reason whenever I have a lefty in the box, with the slider I have more intent to try to get it under the plate or back foot, whereas to the righty I know I have more room to miss off the plate.”

To get there, Almonte effectively had to throw a different slider to left-handers than he does to right-handers, and to phase out his changeup ― a strategy that cuts against the grain of conventional wisdom. It was a good changeup during Almonte’s breakthrough 2022 season, too. Lefties got only two hits off the pitch all year.

Then in April, Almonte allowed three hits to left-handers with his changeup; in May he allowed three more before the phaseout began.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was blunt about the transformation he’s witnessed.

“I want Yency to dismiss April,” he said, referring to a month that left Almonte with an 8.49 ERA. “With May, I think he’s doing a much better job of managing left-handed hitters.”

Evaluating relief pitchers is notoriously tricky. They do not work in bulk. It’s hard to discern the signal from the noise when one bad pitch can balloon a reliever’s ERA into the troposphere, even when his overall body of work is improving.

In Almonte’s case, his change in strategy was deliberate but still subtle. For one thing, the slider he throws to right-handers and the slider he throws to lefties use the same grip.

“It’s just, I guess, a different shape ― trying to get a different shape to a lefty versus a righty,” he said. “To lefties I want a more vertical shape, with the ball breaking down, as opposed to a righty, I want more sweep across the plate so they can see strike as long as possible.”

Statcast still classifies both pitches as a “sweeper,” even though one produces more right-to-left action, and the other tends to break downward. Almonte doesn’t even think of the pitch he throws to lefties as a slider or a sweeper.

“I pretty much told myself in the back of my head ‘try to throw a curveball,’ even though I know I can’t do it,” he said. “but that was the mindset, to try to throw a curveball, trying to have that 12-to-6 (movement).”

The subtleties of Almonte’s tinkering with assistant pitching coach Connor McGuiness will have large consequences. Sunday, the Dodgers saw each of their highest-leverage relievers (Evan Phillips, Brusdar Graterol and Caleb Ferguson) allow runs in a 4-1 loss to the Yankees. If he can add another reliable reliever to that trio, Roberts will gain a weapon in the quest to avoid frustrating late-game meltdowns that can mean the difference between a win or loss.

Almonte has proven that he can still get right-handed hitters out. They’re batting .203 against him this season, with more strikeouts (15) than hits (12). To be trusted in high-leverage situations again, Almonte needs to match those results against lefties.

“I still think the slider, the sinker, versus right(-handed hitters) is death when he’s right,” Roberts said of Almonte. “If he were neutral, that’s the hope, (that) regardless of what part of the game, what run of the lineup, that we can go to him.”

ALSO

The Dodgers placed Luke Williams on waivers, and the 26-year-old infielder/outfielder was claimed by Atlanta on Monday. Williams appeared in four games with the Dodgers in April, going 1 for 10. In 42 games with Triple-A Oklahoma City, Williams batted .268 with a .364 on-base percentage and .452 slugging percentage. … The Dodgers signed veteran reliever Ryan Brasier to a minor league contract, the pitcher told Boston radio station WEEI. Brasier, 35, has a 4.45 ERA in 229 career games with the Angels and Red Sox. He was 1-0 with a 7.29 ERA in 20 games this season before the Red Sox released him on May 21.

UP NEXT

Dodgers (RHP Tony Gonsolin, 3-1, 1.77 ERA) at Cincinnati Reds (RHP Luke Weaver, 1-2, 5.36 ERA), Tuesday, 4 p.m., SportsNet LA, 570 AM