Andy Pages’ rookie campaign with the Los Angeles Dodgers got off to a wonderful start. In his first 16 games, the outfielder was hitting .338/.357/.600 and was the spark that ignited Dodgers’ 14-2 stretch in parts of April and May.
Fast forward to now, and Pages has hit .175/.175/.246 in his last 15 games. The slight drop-off in production has coincided with the Dodgers’ fall from the heights it had just reached.
Entering this season, Pages was still an unknown as he was recovering from shoulder surgery that ended his 2023 season prematurely.
He began 2024 in the Minors with Triple-A Oklahoma City and was extremely productive. That made him a prime candidate to receive a call up to the Majors when the Dodgers needed a more permanent replacement for the injured Jason Heyward.
His performances with the Dodgers in those first 16 games showed enough promise to keep him in the Majors when Heyward returned and instead demoted last year’s promising rookie, James Outman.
Pages has still been a productive player for the Dodgers, but the league has more data on him and have put together a plan of attack that has been slowing him down, according to Bill Plunkett of the Southern California News Group:
“I think they have been pitching me differently,” he said through an interpreter. “But I think it’s more that they see where I’m not making adjustments, where I’m making mistakes. They’re attacking those areas. But I think it’s more me not making the adjustments than what they’re doing to me.”
Even though opposing pitchers have identified how they feel is best to attack Pages, he puts more of the blame on himself for his current struggles. For instance, not taking advantage when pitchers throw to a part of the zone that he knows he handles well:
Opposing pitchers have been “pitching me in zones that I usually do pretty well in,” Pages said, identifying those as “middle-in, middle-down.”
“Those are pitches that are usually in my wheelhouse. But I’m missing those pitches and when they’re making mistakes in those zones. I should be able to hit those mistakes and I’m not right now.”
Through self scouting, he has identified specific issues in his hitting mechanics which are contributing to his poor results at the plate and how he plans on fixing those issues:
“I think a little bit of it is just, throughout the baseball season, the ebbs and flows of it,” Pages said. “But I think a lot of it has to do with me not hitting the pitches I should be hitting which I’m not.
“I’ve been fouling off those balls because I’ve been getting under those pitches in that lower zone. So I’ve been trying to get my hands above those balls so that I’m not fouling them off.”
The Dodgers as a team have been going through another offensive slump similar to the one from earlier in the year. The same as before, lack of production from the bottom of the order has made the offense stale.
The Dodgers need Pages to get back on track to lengthen out the lineup.
Dodgers need to be a more complete team
Miguel Rojas knows how good this Dodgers team can be when everyone in the lineup is contributing in some way.
He highlighted the need for the Dodgers’ auxiliary troops to play their part and not rely on the big guns to provide all of the offense in every single game because doing so puts the team at a disadvantage when the opponents keep the Big Three in check.
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