Dodgers’ Lance Lynn happy for clean slate, but ‘you don’t forget the last four months, either’
Lance Lynn is grateful for the fresh start — and the boost in standings from fourth place in the American League Central to first place in the National League West — that Friday’s trade from the Chicago White Sox to the Dodgers has afforded him.
But the burly, bearded 36-year-old right-hander knows he can’t just hit delete backspace on a brutal 2023 season in which he went 6-9 with a 6.47 ERA, highest among qualified starters, and gave up a major league-high 28 homers in 21 starts for the White Sox.
“It’s a clean slate because you’re on a new team, but you don’t forget the last four months, either,” Lynn said before Sunday’s game against the Cincinnati Reds. “There’s a lot of positives that you can take, and the negatives that I’ve had this year, I need to figure out how to make sure those don’t come back up.”
The Dodgers reacquire reliever Joe Kelly and add starter Lance Lynn from the White Sox as the team fortifies its pitching staff ahead of Tuesday’s trade deadline.
Lynn, who was acquired with veteran reliever Joe Kelly, threw in the bullpen before Sunday’s game and will make his Dodgers debut on Tuesday night against the Oakland Athletics in Chavez Ravine.
Tony Gonsolin will pitch Wednesday, and manager Dave Roberts said Julio Urías’ next start has been pushed back to Thursday because of a “fingernail issue.”
The Dodgers don’t expect Lynn to be a savior for their injury-ravaged and inexperienced rotation, which has featured rookie right-handers Bobby Miller, Emmet Sheehan and Michael Grove for several weeks.
But they believe with some adjustments in pitch selection and sequencing, they can accentuate Lynn’s strengths — he is durable enough to pitch deep into games and has career-highs in whiff rate (30.9%) and strikeouts-per-nine innings (10.8) this season, thanks in part to his low-velocity, high-spin fastball, which averages 92.4 mph.
“I’ve had some ups and downs this year, for sure,” Lynn said. “When you look at ERA and wins and losses, it’s the worst I’ve had in my career. And then you look at strikeouts per nine innings and stuff like that, and they’re the best I’ve ever had.
“It’s been a weird year, but hopefully we can make sure that the ERA and wins take care of themselves, and we keep the other things going in a positive direction, and maybe a change of scenery will help that. I feel good physically, so when you feel good, you know you can go out there and be capable of a lot of things.”
Lynn is only two years removed from a 2021 season in which he went 11-6 with a 2.69 ERA and 176 strikeouts in 28 starts and finished third in AL Cy Young Award voting.
He has shown flashes of that dominance this season, striking out 16 in a seven-inning start at Seattle on June 16. The White Sox lost that game 5-1. Chicago also lost three other games in which Lynn struck out 10 or more, against Minnesota on April 11, Tampa Bay on April 29 and Toronto on July 6.
“He’s sort of been a victim of circumstance — there’s been a little unluckiness in my view as far as watching some of the videos,” Roberts said. “But I’ve heard nothing but good things about him as far as the compete, the preparedness.
“He’s a guy who takes the baseball and goes deep into games. I feel that getting him in this environment and playing meaningful games will bring out the best in him.”
With Amed Rosario and Kiké Hernández on the roster, manager Dave Roberts hopes to see improvement from the Dodgers against left-handed pitching.
Kelly, who marked his return to the Dodgers with a bases-loaded strikeout of Will Benson to end the sixth inning of Saturday night’s 3-2 win over the Reds, has known Lynn since 2007, when they were both in college and played on Team USA together.
They were both drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals, Lynn in the first round in 2008 and Kelly in the third round in 2009. They were Cardinals teammates for three seasons (2012-14) and White Sox teammates for most of the last three seasons.
“I’ve known him for a long time, and he’s a person who will never quit,” Kelly said of Lynn. “He’ll be the first to say he could be a lot better … but there are a lot of smart people here who will maybe show him something that he didn’t even realize or know he was doing wrong. It can be mechanical, maybe even the way he’s holding his fingers.
“But he’s gotten a lot of swing-and-miss this year, and some of his peripheral numbers are good, so it’s gonna be fun to watch him kind of get re-energized a bit. Going to the playoffs, I think, will kind of turn it up another level for him. He’s one of those guys who just likes to compete. You’re gonna get a warrior out of him.”
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