On May 26, 2023, I had the unfortunate experience of sitting through a Noah Syndergaard start at Tropicana Field. Normally, Dodger baseball is fun, even in defeat, but this game was an exception. The Rays were getting on base and turning the game into a de facto track meet by bullying Syndergaard’s complete inability to hold runners on.
I even had to double-check my notes, but Taylor Walls stole second and third base on consecutive pitches.
Even with proper lighting on streaming that was oddly lacking
at the venue, this game was not fun.
If I were at home for that game, I would have stopped and gone to do something else. It was this game where I coined the phrase “being trapped at the ballpark.” I spent all this time and effort to get to St. Petersburg, FL; I had clocked the game as a loss before I even touched down, and I still felt obligated to stay and watch a one-sided, dreary affair.
This anecdote is noteworthy now, because the Brewers have essentially been able to run at will on Dodger pitching in the NLCS. At the beginning of the series, I figured runs would be a premium.
Runs have been hard to come by for the Dodgers, but not so much for the Brewers.
No free rides
I wasn’t worried about Tarik Skubal or Yoshinobu Yamamoto, but clearly I was wrong. But Skubal and Yamamoto weren’t dishing out free passes, either. Blake Snell and, particularly, Tyler Glasnow are middling at holding runners in 2026.
- Snell – 10 steals in 13 attempts
- Glasnow – 14 steals in 17 attempts
- Skubal – 4 steals in 4 attempts (with Los Angeles); 4 steals in 5 attempts (with Detroit)
- Yamamoto – 6 steals in 10 attempts
It’s not 2023-Noah Syndergaard bad, but if the Brewers turn the base paths into a track meet, that favors their style of play.
Snell and Glasnow have to pitch better than they did previously in the NLDS. If they combine for another ten walks over the next 48 hours, any attempt at coming back in this series likely ends before it has a chance to get started.
Turns out, you can now run on Will Smith
Will Smith nabbed ten base stealers in the regular season in 49 attempts, for a 20.4% caught-stealing rate. The league average in 2026 was a 23.3% caught-stealing rate. It’s not terrible, but a far cry from when he caught 32 out of 96 would-be basestealers to lead all of baseball in 2024.
As an aside, for those wondering if Hunter Feduccia would fare better at holding the Brewers’ running game at bay, the answer is probably not.
In 2026, in 59 games with the Rays, there were 37 stolen bases in 49 attempts, which is a 24.5% caught-stealing rate. What’s the problem?
However, with the Dodgers, in 31 games, Feduccia has only caught two runners in 27 attempts. Technically.
One of those was on the last day of the regular season campaign, when Jack Dreyer picked off Scott Bandura with Feduccia never touching the ball.
The other, which is far more relevant to our discussion before Game 3, is that Feduccia’s other nabbed runner with the Dodgers was Jake Bauers of the Milwaukee Brewers on August 14, 2026.
If there was an opportunity to repeat this bit of history, now would be the time.
