A week ago, Tyler Glasnow was starting to become a question mark again for the Dodgers.
Los Angeles responded by sending the right-hander home, hoping a brief reset would get him back on track.
In Miami last Saturday, the All-Star pitcher appeared out of sync during a troubling four-inning, four-run outing against the Marlins.
Glasnow was fighting his mechanics, trying to loosen his long-troublesome back and, perhaps most alarmingly, seemed to be losing the poise he had displayed after returning last month from his latest extended injured-list absence.
Rather than continue with the Dodgers to Cincinnati for the second stop of their road trip, Glasnow flew straight back to Los Angeles the day after his poor start against the Marlins.
The plan was simple: avoid another flight and more time on the road, then spend a week refining his delivery and preventing his season from veering off course again.
“He got back on Pacific Standard Time, in his own bed, one leg of travel versus the two,” manager Dave Roberts said Friday afternoon. “He threw his bullpen a few days ago. That went great. So he’s dialed in.”
Glasnow still had some fine-tuning to do Friday, even as he powered the Dodgers to an 8-2 victory over the San Francisco Giants with six innings of two-run ball and 10 strikeouts.
He left a curveball over the plate in the second inning, and Jung Hoo Lee drove it out for a home run.
After a leadoff single in the third, Glasnow also lost his command from the stretch and allowed another run, briefly putting the Dodgers behind. But the offense answered emphatically, launching five home runs — four of them in the eighth inning — as the recently revived lineup surged back.
The important thing, though, was that Glasnow felt better.
With his health. With his throw. With his ability to get completely synced up in time for the playoffs.
“I think I feel relatively consistent. It’s just a matter of, sometimes I’m not going to feel good, sometimes I will,” Glasnow said. “Today, I think it was a step in the right direction. I think it’s better than feeling really good for a long time before [the playoffs]. I’d rather kind of feel it, work through some stuff and have a good one right before playoffs. So I think I’m in a good spot right now.”
That might sound counter-intuitive for a pitcher who could be crucial to the Dodgers’ postseason plans. It might be rationalization from an 11-year veteran who has never made it through a full regular season healthy.
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Then again, it’s a blueprint that worked well enough for Glasnow last year, when he only felt his mechanics click in the last few weeks before the start of the playoffs yet went on to post a 1.69 ERA in six October outings.
“It is just making sure he’s feeling good, he’s healthy, which he is,” Roberts said. “So now it’s just letting him go do what he does and bet on the talent to perform. That’s where I think we all feel good, especially Tyler right now, just knowing the health and where the head’s at, all that stuff. We’re in a good spot.”
Roberts struck a decidedly different tone after Glasnow’s start last week, saying then that the right-hander “didn’t feel great coming into the game as far as kind of overall body.”
That revelation raised alarm bells regarding the oft-injured 33-year-old –– who had already missed more than three months this season with a back spasms problem that lasted far longer than initially anticipated.
His absence in Cincinnati was also conspicuous, turning Friday’s outing into something of a late-season litmus test.
“This is an important start,” Roberts said beforehand. “He knows it.”
The manager’s evaluation afterward?
“I thought he did a good job of making pitches when he needed to,” Roberts said, encouraged by Glasnow’s ability to get swing-and-miss, as well as the way he retired 10 of his final 11 batters in a 98-pitch performance.
For his part, Glasnow downplayed whatever concerns had been lingering about his health of late.
He acknowledged he felt “not great” last week. He cited the cross-country flight as perhaps getting him out of whack. But he also noted that, “in the course of a season, you’re not always going to feel good.”
“It wasn’t anything crazy,” he added. “But I definitely feel better now than I did then.”
At this point, that will have to be enough for the Dodgers. Come the start of the postseason, they will be counting on him to be an effective member of their rotation.
“Right now, I feel pretty good,” Glasnow said. “We worked on some stuff after that last start. Just tried to keep for this start, take it in the next start. And then hopefully everything is feeling good for playoffs.”