Lefty neutralizer Adam Kolarek weighs in on new three-batter rule change
by Rowan Kavner
As soon as Major League Baseball announced the new three-batter minimum among its rule changes in 2020, attention turned to the Dodgers’ left-handed pitcher who made three appearances in the 2019 National League Division Series, each time to face the same electrifying 20-year-old.
Adam Kolarek became the Juan Soto neutralizer early in the series. Kolarek threw three pitches in Game 1, striking out the Nationals young star. He threw nine pitches in Game 2, getting a Soto groundout. He threw six pitches in Game 4, striking out Soto again.
“It’s still a little surreal,” Kolarek said this spring, with plenty of time for the 31-year-old lefty to digest the experience of his first career postseason.
Now, that role will need to be tweaked.
He was the Dodgers’ lefty specialist, but he doesn’t view himself that way. As surprised as he was to see the three-batter minimum rule get instituted this quickly, he said he’s looking forward to it.
“I think, if anything, you’re just looking for the opportunity to show yourself and prove yourself,” Kolarek said. “For me, when I approach facing a righty, being a groundball pitcher, I’m not trying to strike him out. If it happens, it happens. But I have to accept that sometimes ground balls are going to get hit hard — sometimes they’re at people, sometimes they’re through the hole — but if I execute my pitch, worse case scenario, it should just be a groundball single.”
Kolarek credits his mindset to Alex Cobb, a pitcher who shared that groundball mentality with Kolarek when the two were in Tampa Bay. Ground balls lead to hits. They also lead to double plays.
Last year, among Dodger pitchers who threw at least 10 innings, none of them had a higher groundball percentage than Kolarek (73.5%). Of course, the vast majority of those ground balls came off the bats of left-handed hitters, who had just five hits and didn’t knock in any runs against Kolarek in 9 1/3 regular season innings.
In his career, lefties have a .524 OPS against Kolarek. Righties, meanwhile, have posted an .849 OPS. In Los Angeles, Kolarek only faced 12 right-handed batters compared to 33 lefties. With his penchant for retiring left-handers, he only faced one or two batters in 20 of his 26 Dodger appearances.
“There’s a reason with my arm slot, I do get a lot of lefties out,” Kolarek said. “I took a lot of pride in being available every day. In that sense, I’m a little disappointed, because just like any reliever, you can’t throw to three batters every night.”
But Kolarek wasn’t always used that way.
Even last year, in a season that began in Tampa Bay for Kolarek, by year’s end he still faced more righties (116) than lefties (113). Since debuting with the Rays in 2017, Kolarek has faced 48 more righties (229) than lefties (181).
And even after his trade to Los Angeles, when he knew he would likely only face one or two lefties in a lineup, Kolarek said he wasn’t waiting after the at-bat to see if he’d get pulled. He still expected to stay in and finish the inning.
“If the manager comes out, the manager comes out,” he said. “Personally, if I give up a hit to that lefty, I hate being taken out because I want to fix my mistake and get the next guy, even if it’s a righty. I’m excited, in that sense. If a lefty gets a hit off me, next guy’s a righty, I want to get a double play with the righty and get out of the inning.”
Now, with the new rule requiring any pitcher to throw to a minimum of three batters (barring illness or injury), he will get that chance again.
“Yes, Adam has been a lefty killer throughout his entire career,” said manager Dave Roberts. “But obviously with the rule change, the challenge for him is to be able to feel confident in getting out a right-hand hitter.
“Now it’s kind of, ‘How do I attack right-handed hitters?’ … We’re going to give him every opportunity to face right-hand hitters to kind of see how that plays out, but I have every confidence that Adam will figure some things out and be effective against the right-hand hitter.”
That process has already begun.
Kolarek said he’s constantly working on different ways to use his sinker, a pitch he used 83.8% of the time against lefties and 60.5% against righties last year.
Among the changes, which he said he would’ve been working on anyway, he’s trying to get better at throwing the pitch inside to righties and having it tail away. He’ll primarily keep the same arm slot, but he said he’s experimenting with that, occasionally throwing out of a higher slot to back righties off the plate while working on a similar pitch from a lower arm slot that will ideally “stay more true” than his typical sinker.
He also said he still has faith in his changeup, a pitch he wasn’t able to feature much as a Dodger. He threw the pitch 73 times last season, all against righties, who hit .176 against it.
“Just because I don’t throw it to lefties doesn’t mean I don’t work on it all offseason to have that ready,” Kolarek said. “Now, I get to show it in a game again.”
What Kolarek is most curious to see following the new rule change is how managers across baseball will handle their bullpens to keep everyone healthy. Last year, between Tampa Bay and Los Angeles, 65% of Kolarek’s appearances came with one or no days of rest.
He was equipped to handle that kind of workload because he wasn’t throwing many pitches most nights.
“I think that’s the worst part about the rule,” Kolarek said. “You’re starting to mess with health a little bit. You’re asked to face more guys and try to come back a day later. … I just hope everyone manages it properly.”
Quick Hits:
- Roberts said he sees Mookie Betts at the top of the lineup most nights, with certain occasions against particular right-handers where a lefty may lead off.
- Rain is in the forecast during the Dodgers’ Spring Training opener on Saturday at San Francisco, but right now Roberts said the plan is for the game to move forward.
