Despite a comfortable division lead and the National League's best run differential, Monday felt like something of a must-win for the Los Angeles Dodgers. If anything, they needed the morale boost given injuries to Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Mookie Betts, and others over the weekend.
While the offense came through in the 9-5 victory, it was the start from James Paxton that ended up almost being the most noteworthy component of the series opener in Colorado. Paxton had, of course, already bounced back from a miserable 1.2 inning, six earned run start against Pittsburgh back on June 5th. He threw six innings of one run ball against Texas last week. But Monday showed us a version of Paxton we hadn't seen in some time.
The final line for the southpaw read seven innings, a pair of hits, one walk, and just one earned run. It was his longest outing in a Dodgers uniform, but also represented his highest strikeout total. Paxton punched out eight Rockies hitters, giving him his highest strikeout figure since June of last year when he was pitching for the Red Sox.
In that regard, Monday's start was quite the deviation from the Dodgers version of James Paxton. While he's never been a truly overpowering arm, he's been even more extremely contact-oriented since joining Los Angeles. His 13.8 K% represents the lowest rate of his career, with his previous low mark coming all the way back in 2015. His success this year has, instead, come largely on his ability to limit quality contact.
Monday's Paxton was all about the punchout, though. Eight strikeouts actually exceeds his total from his last three starts combined. His previous high since signing with the Dodgers was five, back on April 1st.
Within his eight strikeouts, Paxton went for a Whiff% of 29 across his three pitch types. He was particularly effective with the knuckle curve, with which he generated whiffs at a 47 percent clip. Rockies hitters were chasing at a 29 percent rate, including a 43 percent mark against the breaking pitch. For the year, Paxton had posted a chase rate of 26.2 percent & a whiff rate of just 7.4 percent prior to Monday's start.
Velocity was in line with what we've seen this year (93.3 MPH average vs. 93.4 average on the year), but he had spin rates up on both the knuckle curve & changeup, according to Baseball Savant. Both the fastball & change each featured more break as a result. He simply had it all working.
At the same time, this is obviously a Rockies team prone to the K. As a team, they chase more than anybody outside of Miami and feature a strikeout rate that trails only Seattle & Boston. It's important to at least acknowledge that context within a larger theoretical hope of sustaining some rediscovered strikeout ability.
Nonetheless, getting a glimpse of a more vintage flavor of James Paxton bodes well as the rotation prepares for life without Yoshinobu Yamamoto.