During the regular season, Andy Pages was arguably the Los Angeles Dodgers’ most underrated player. He ranked in the 97th percentile in Outs Above Average during the regular season with 11 and appeared to be a long-term fixture in the outfield for the franchise.
That last part still remains the case. Pages is a very useful and critical player for the Dodgers. But it’s absolutely worth discussing whether they should bench Pages considering his woeful struggles in the postseason, with the 24-year-old slugger hitting .083 with 11 strikeouts, zero walks and home runs and only one RBI the entire postseason.
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Why Dave Roberts and the Dodgers can't bench Andy Pages
A reminder: in the regular season, Pages hit .272/.313/.461 with a .774 OPS, 27 home runs and 86 RBI. It’s not like he’s suddenly forgotten how to hit. The player that he was for 156 games is still in there. It absolutely is. And the Dodgers realize that. Which is why Dave Roberts said that he liked the at-bats that Pages took in the 18-inning thriller in which he went 0-for-5 and that he intends to be patient with the second-year outfielder.
“I’m not there yet,” he told reporters about possibly sitting Pages to give him a breather.
But the decision is much more complicated than just Pages’ struggles. Tommy Edman, a potential natural replacement, has a right ankle injury that has lingered and prevented him from playing the outfield. The other options, Enrique Hernandez and Alex Call, have limited playing time in center field this season as well.
Dodgers are confident Andy Pages has one big postseason moment in him
Besides, a player of Pages’ caliber – and what he has meant to the Dodgers this season – is worth playing through the struggles. He’s earned the benefit of the doubt. He also began the season struggling and the Dodgers let him play through it and he rewarded them with a brilliant year. But if he is to bounce back, he’ll need to make adjustments against the fastball, a pitch that he has seen almost 50 percent of the time this postseason.
“Some of it is staying in the strike zone,” Dodgers hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc told The Athletic. “Teams are challenging him. He’s getting beat by fastballs … probably a little bit of his swing. You’re caught between. Breaking balls are in the back of your mind, and then the fastball beats you. You get caught in no man’s land with it.”
Baseball is a game predicated on failure. Talk to any player and they will tell you that. Ups and downs happen. The caliber of player that Pages is suggests that he will break out of it. But a potential emergence from Pages could be what separates the Dodgers from the Blue Jays in this series, which makes it all the more critical that he bounce back sooner than later.
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