Victor González is ready for his comeback

Victor González had a rough return to the pitcher’s mound after he came off of the injured list last year. He struggled to get two outs and tallied up three runs in the process, and the outing was the beginning of a slide that saw González back in the minors at the end of August.

“I got very negative,” González said to Jorge Castillo of the Los Angeles Times. “I didn’t want to pitch. I only went to the stadium, I got in the game, I threw the ball and whatever happened, happened. I didn’t go to the mound with a plan. So, I wasn’t the same. I was in my own world.

Now, González is ready for his comeback. With the help of an old fried, González changed his diet, exercise, and sleep schedule and lost more than 30 pounds in time for spring training. Now, his fastball is back up to 97 mph, and he’s planning to make more use of his changeup.

“We can’t do what we do without him,” said pitching coach Mark Prior. “Obviously everybody’s important, but he came out of nowhere and did a lot of unbelievable things.”

Dodgers Links

Tommy Davis, a star outfielder and batter for the Dodgers in the 1960s, passed away this weekend. Glenn Rifkin at the New York Times tells the story of Davis’s career.

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Is the Dodgers’ high-spending strategy only good on paper? Neil Paine at FiveThirtyEight breaks it down.