NL West notes: Dodgers postseason woes, stolen bases, Bob Melvin

It’s a relatively slow time for Dodgers news with the offseason not yet officially here and the postseason still going. So after old friend Andrew Heaney got the final three outs for the Rangers Sunday night, and before Corey Seager, Max Scherzer and Texas take on Game 7 on Monday night, here are a few weekend stories for you to pass the time.

Jack Harris at the Los Angeles took a deep dive into the Dodgers’ playoff failures the last three years, especially recurring themes of running out of starting pitching and disappearing offense (unsurprisingly, a brutal combination to overcome in October).

Back on Friday, Chris Gilligan at FanGraphs wrote about how stolen base attempts are way down this postseason relative to the regular season, and even lower than the 2022 regular season before this season’s disengagement and base-size rule changes made steals easier to rack up. For what it’s worth, the Dodgers did not attempt a stolen base in the NLDS, but then again they only reached base 25 times (16 non-homer hits, plus nine walks) in three games.

In National League West news, the Giants requested and received permission to interview Padres manager Bob Melvin for the dugout vacancy in San Francisco, per Dennis Lin and Andrew Baggarly at The Athletic as well as Janie McCauley at the Associated Press. Having already managed the D-backs and Padres, Melvin moving to San Francisco would bring up three-fifths of the way to pulling a managerial Matt Herges or Steve Finley within the division.