Approaching José Quintana's pitching should be relatively straightforward: Do not chase. The man does not throw strikes. Only about 41 percent of his pitches in 2024 have been in the zone, which ranks dead last among all MLB pitchers who threw at least 1500 pitches last season.
That is just about the most aggravating archetype of pitcher to watch mow through your team's lineup, but for all the readied complaints about plate discipline or sloppy hitting, suffering at the hands of Quintana was not a unique experience: Quintana had looked unhittable since late August. Clearly if the advice is "Please stop chasing," looking at batters trying to hit against Quintana leads to the conclusion that it's not that easy.
The Dodgers made it look easy on Thursday. They racked up four walks against Quintana—split evenly between Shohei Ohtani and vintage three-true-outcomes Max Muncy—and walked their way through the Mets bullpen, too. The Fox broadcast found a new record to display: The Dodgers had become the first team in MLB history to record at least seven walks in four consecutive postseason games. (Speaking of postseason records, Muncy tied Reggie Jackson for the most consecutive postseason plate appearances reaching base safely, with 12 straight. Aptly, eight of those plate appearances ended in walks, two in home runs, and two in base-hit singles.) The Mets had 10 hits in the game and lost 10-2.
There exists an alternate universe where, with the Mets trailing 7-2 in the bottom of the sixth inning with the bases loaded, Jesse Winker hit a grand slam off Blake Treinen to bring the Mets within one, and then Dave Roberts could be called to question for his bullpen management. The fly ball that Winker actually hit sounded all right off the bat but petered out by the warning track, and so instead, the Dodgers machine did as it was designed to do: It curb-stomped its way to a 3-1 series lead.
That's not to use one measly hypothetical to cast the Dodgers' success as luck—or, rather, success so far as luck, as I will believe the Mets are down and out once I see the bodies. "If the game turned out differently, it would've been a different game" is a very "If my grandmother had wheels, she would've been a bike" rationalization. But considering the Dodgers' recent postseason records, acknowledging the arbitrariness of single-pitch inflection points feels worthwhile, if just to absolve Mookie Betts of all the recent slander he's borne.
After Ohtani finally broke his amusing 0-for-22 bases-empty record with a lead-off home run, he spent three plate appearances walking. Two of these were effectively intentional walks played by the old rules, with the Mets pitchers throwing four balls for the look of it. In the wake of Ohtani's semi-intentional walks, Betts delivered. Ohtani walked, and Betts hit a single; Ohtani walked, and Betts hit a double; Ohtani walked, and Betts smashed a two-run homer. 2023 postseason Betts went 1-for-12 in the three games he got to play, and 2024 postseason Betts has gone 10-for-36 with a .964 OPS.
Betts was neither possessed between then and now, nor entirely reinvented as a hitter. He serves as a tidy little summary of the recent-memory Dodgers. Sometimes, in a three-game sample, you'll go 1-for-11, and sometimes you'll put on a performance that makes viewers wonder why anyone ever swings at a pitch outside the zone. If there's a lesson to be learned here, signing Shohei Ohtani is just as good as making a visit to Enrique Hernández's optometrist.
