LOS ANGELES — Emmet Sheehan continued his late-season hot streak with another strong outing on Sunday against the San Francisco Giants, with nine strikeouts in 5 1/3 innings, allowing only a single and a walk.
“I’ve loved the version of Emmet we’ve seen the last three outings,” manager Dave Roberts said Sunday. “He’s been fantastic.”
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Sheehan in three starts over the last two weeks since rejoining the Dodgers has allowed only one run in 17 innings, with 24 strikeouts against only three walks. It came after spending most of August in Triple-A.
“I don’t know if I proved anything to myself,” Sheehan said. “It was more just getting a couple of things right, and I’m in a much better spot now.”
Sheehan was in the Dodgers rotation from opening day through August 2, when he allowed three home runs and five runs in a loss to the Boston Red Sox. Twenty starts into the season, Sheehan wasn’t getting results (5.29 ERA, belying his 4.00 xERA), and was having issues holding his velocity throughout his starts. He was optioned to Oklahoma City the next day.
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That time in the minors was productive for Sheehan. After a planned shortened outing in which he allowed two runs in 2/3 of an inning, Sheehan struck out 24 over three starts with one run allowed in 17 1/3 innings. That earned him a Pacific Coast League pitcher of the week award and pitcher of the month honors for August.
“My confidence stayed the same the whole time. I knew the coaches down there were going to help me, and I was going to get right,” Sheehan said. “I took that approach going into it. I wasn’t helping the team here, so I needed that a little bit. I feel like in a good spot.”
“We’ve seen confidence. When you’re essentially fighting for your life, to create an opportunity for yourself, that’s what I see. There’s urgency,” Roberts said. “I like the way he’s trusting his stuff, he’s in a good spot physically, and the performance has been fantastic.”
One tweak Sheehan made was throwing his curveball more. In his last three outings with the Dodgers, he threw the curve 21.9 percent of the time, up from his 12.3 percent over the course of the season.
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“It’s something, Connor [McGuiness, assistant pitching coach], Mark [Prior, pitching coach], and I and the coaches down at Triple-A have been working on a lot is expanding the front-to-back game with the fastball and the curveball,” Sheehan said. “Some guys ended up throughout the season sitting more mid-speed, slider, changeup on me. I think having that change of speeds has been really important.
On Sunday against San Francisco, Sheehan induced 15 of his 18 swinging strikes on his fastball and curveball and finished off five of his nine strikeouts with those two pitches.
Sheehan’s first 26 outings this year were starts, but on Sunday he followed an opener, at the very least getting him oriented about his possible relief role in the postseason. After three solid months in the rotation last season, Sheehan pitched in relief in October, with mixed results (8.59 ERA, 13 hits and five walks in 7 1/3 innings). He allowed runs in each of his four appearances, though rebounded with 2 2/3 scoreless innings in extras in the marathon Game 3, when got three outs with two strikeouts in a scoreless outing in the seventh and eighth innings of Game 7.
“The routine of everything can be a little hard to adjust to, so having that experience helps a lot. Getting back into that, I know what I need to do to be ready to go in the game,” Sheehan said. “Execution was off in the first couple, but then I felt better as it went on.”
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Sheehan returned Sunday when Tarik Skubal went on the bereavement list, and the plan is for Sheehan to be optioned back to Triple-A, perhaps as early as Tuesday when Roki Sasaki is likely activated from the injured list straight into a high-leverage relief role.
Roberts on Sunday said the plan is for Sheehan to start on Saturday in the Triple-A championship game, provided Oklahoma City beats Las Vegas in the best-of-3 PCL championship starting Tuesday. But after that, Sheehan will almost certainly be on the playoff roster. Most likely he’ll be in a relief role, but that might depend on how Blake Snell progresses over the next two weeks from his left groin tightness.
“After [Sheehan] makes that last start, we’ll evaluate where we are as a staff,” Roberts said.
“Whatever role they want me to do going forward, I’m ready to do it,” Sheehan said. “It was nice to get that experience coming out of the pen.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
