“I’ve seen the world from both sides now,” sang Joni Mitchell. The Phillies’ opponent in the National League Division Series, the evaders of Tinseltown’s ersatz trolleys, will not be saying the same. They’re only going to be seeing events from one side now, for the most part. One side of the plate, to be precise.
Thanks to luck both good (the emergence of Cristopher Sánchez as an ace and of Jesús Luzardo as a major contributor) and bad (Zack Wheeler’s thoracic outlet syndrome and Aaron Nola’s struggles),
the Phillies will be presenting southpaws as their top three starters for the playoffs. The individual pitchers—the aforementioned Sánchez and Luzardo, along with Ranger Suárez— produce little cause for anxiety among the Phillies faithful. The idea of bringing three southpaws in a row, however, produces a little more. The Phillies playoff rotation will be sinister in more than one sense. But how much trepidation should we have about it?
Los Angeles has no trouble putting together a lineup to counter lefties, with plenty of right handed hitters in their quiver. Switch-hitting Tommy Edman, of course, takes the right side of things when a lefty is on the mound. The Dodgers faced Phillies lefties three times in the past month, and their lineup decisions for those matchups provide a preview of what they might do in the NLDS (they only faced right-handed starters from the Redlegs, so no help there). In those games, the Dodgers went with an opening quartet of Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Teoscar Hernández, and Freeman, putting same-handed hitting in the leadoff and cleanup spots. Left-handed hitter Max Muncy made an appearance in one of those matchups, and backstop Ben Rortvedt, who hits (but does not throw) from the left side, made an appearance in two; the result of an injury to Will Smith (who will be available for at least a pinch-hitting role in the NLDS). The rest of the lineup were righties (counting Edman among them).
As a unit, the Angelenos are slashing .255/.319/.446 against lefties. That ranks seventh league-wide for batting average, 11th for on-base percentage, and second for slugging percentage. By weighted Runs Created +, the Dodgers trail only the Yankees and Tigers for success against lefties, with a 111 mark. The Dodgers’ 70 round-trippers put them in a tie with the Junior Circuit’s New York club for most against left-handed pitchers. They do hit right-handed pitching somewhat better than left (.252/.331/.439, wRC+ of 114), but not to any great degree.
The Dodgers’ righties are slashing .254/.312/.437 against left-handed pitching, with a wRC+ of 107. The right-handed Dodger who does the best against opposite-handed pitching is Miguel Rojas, with a wRC+ of 143. Edman’s ability to ensure he always has the platoon advantage hasn’t helped him much against lefties this year, as he’s only posting a wRC+ of 89 against them. Oddly enough, Los Angeles lefties are outperforming their right-handed brethren against left-handed pitching, slashing .255/.329/.459 , with a wRC+ of 118. Only one team, the Astros, presents a superior level of lefty-on-lefty carnage (the Phillies, by the way, are right behind the Dodgers, with a left v. left wRC+ of 115). So, what’s going on here? Have the Dodgers found a way to overturn the conventional wisdom on platoon advantages? Have the mad scientists at USC and UCLA invented some sort of serum that endows lefties with superior abilities against same-handed pitching? Is it Hollywood Magic? Is all of this stalling so I can avoid getting to the boring conclusion that their lefty v. lefty success is just a product of the fact that they’ve got Shohei Ohtani?
Nope.
It’s a product of the fact that they’ve got Shohei Ohtani and also Freddy Freeman. Los Angeles has four left-handed batters with a minimum of 50 plate appearances against left-handed pitchers: the aforementioned Cooperstown-bound duo along with Michael Conforto and Max Muncy. Muncy, to his credit, plays the part that he’s supposed to play: his performance against same-handed pitching lags well behind his performance against righties, and simply isn’t very good overall (.157/.250/.314). Despite that, he’s a regular feature in the lineup against same-handed pitching when he’s healthy. Ohtani and Freeman, though, are fulfilling the letter of the law, but not its spirit. Yes, they perform better against righties than they do lefties. But their performance against lefties is so good that it’s better than most batters perform with the platoon advantage. Ohtani is slashing .279/.344/.544 against same handed pitching with a wRC+ of 146. Freeman is slashing .285/.349/.506 with a wRC+ of 136 against the same. That’s not terribly surprising; both are bona fide superstars, and it’ll take more than a platoon advantage to thwart them.
Conforto, though, is an oddity. With the platoon advantage, he’s posting a mediocre .190/.292/.323. Without it, he’s hitting .246/.372/.385. Among Dodgers lefties with a minimum of 50 plate appearances, Conforto has the worst batting average and slugging percentage against right-handed pitching, and is tied for the lowest wRC+. Despite that, the Dodgers have put him up against right-handed pitching far more often than left; he’s had just 78 plate appearances against same-handed pitching, versus 408 against opposite handed pitchers. Some players do post reverse splits, but Conforto isn’t typically one of them. He did post superior numbers against lefties than righties in 2024, but no other season of his career showed a similar pattern. So, what’s going on? It’s just a trick of the light, or rather of luck: his BABIP against righties this year is .230, whereas his BABIP against lefties is .341; the relative dearth of opportunities he’s had against lefties has added the power of small sample size to the equation (Hat-tip to Antique-Plum-4533 on reddit, whose note on the BABIP issue turned up as I researched this).
All of which is to say that the Dodgers won’t be caught flat-footed by a parade of southpaw hurlers. They have plenty of right-handed hitting, and their best left-handed hitters aren’t made particularly vulnerable by same-handed pitching. There is one advantage that the Phillies get by presenting so many lefties: Ohtani is at his best— a whopping 186 wRC+— against right-handed pitching. He’s still superb against lefties of course, but the Phillies won’t be dealing with the most dangerous version of him, at least when their starters are in. It’s like being charged by a lion with a sore paw: not as dangerous as it might otherwise be, though far from comfortable.
Even with Ohtani not being in his ideal situation, the Phillies will have to rely on the excellence of their starting pitching, rather than the platoon advantage, if they want to bring the Dodgers’ title defense to a screeching halt. Fortunately, the Sánchez-Suárez-Luzardo trio is indeed excellent. All three, of course, do better against same-handed hitting than against opposite. But Sánchez and Suárez are still pretty fearsome against righties, posting ERAs of 2.75 and 3.18 respectively. Luzardo has been more vulnerable, with an ERA of 4.47 against them. That does create a matchup concern. But even if he should falter, the Phillies’ other southpaws could leave Los Angeles’ postseason heading south.
