Dodgers 2023 season in thirds: The final 54 games

All year long we’ve been keeping track of the Dodgers at each third of the season, as a way to keep tabs on how things are going. Here’s a look at the final third of the season, in which the Dodgers played their best all season.

The most obvious improvement came on the pitching side, which allowed the second-fewest runs in the majors over their final 54 games. The result was a plus-95 run differential that nearly matched the total from the first two thirds of the year (plus-112).

On offense, the total production didn’t change much, but how they got there did. The team’s batting average steadily rose as the season went on.

Moving on to the players, we get to the catching position, which saw an exchange of roles over the final 54 games, in a way.

Austin Barnes struggled terribly at the plate for the first two thirds of the season, but was well above average over the final third.

That came with Will Smith slumping badly at the plate. During the final month came the revelation that Smith broke a rib on a hit by pitch back on April 30, which likely led to bad habits at the plate. While Smith has been deemed healthy enough to play by the medical staff, he just hasn’t really hit for a while. October would be a great time for that to turn back around.

Here we see continued excellence from Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, and an astonishingly consistent year by Jason Heyward.

Miguel Rojas had a great turnaround at the plate in the final 54 games after a bad first two months. Kiké Hernández and Amed Rosario had hot starts after getting acquired at the trade deadline then tapered off, but were mostly fine in total.

It was a brutal final third of the season for David Peralta, looking a lot like his first 54 games.

The final third of the season saw growth from rookies Bobby Miller and Emmet Sheehan, plus the emergence of fellow rookie Ryan Pepiot after missing over three months on the injured list. That’s definitely a positive going forward, and could manifest this October as well. The Dodgers absolutely need it.

I don’t have a real rhyme or reason for where to include some of these pitchers, but mostly wanted to keep each pitcher’s season thirds together. A case could be made to lump Ryan Yarbrough in with the starters, but he’s with the relievers here.

So the totals might be a bit skewed for each section of the pitching staff. But consider this: over the final third of the season, the septet of relievers the Dodgers are most likely to use in leverage — Evan Phillips, Brusdar Graterol, Ryan Brasier, Caleb Ferguson, Joe Kelly, Shelby Miller, and Alex Vesia — combined for a 1.68 ERA in 118 innings, with 121 strikeouts against only 17 unintentional walks.