Stripling’s and Stewart’s versatility adds depth in rotation and bullpen
by Cary Osborne
It’s rare that a team can rely on five starters to carry them through 162 games. The last time a Major League team had five pitchers start at least 30 games in a season was 2012 (San Francisco and Cincinnati).
In 2017, the Dodgers used 10 different starting pitchers. The majority of those starts, 78 percent, went to the five starters who figure to make up the starting rotation to begin the 2018 season — Clayton Kershaw, Rich Hill, Alex Wood, Kenta Maeda and Hyun-Jin Ryu.
But depth comes in the faces of two members of the 2017 bullpen, Ross Stripling and Brock Stewart, who are both being built up as starting pitchers in Spring Training.
“You don’t want any of your teammates to get hurt, but Spring Training’s kind of a weird time coming off a really short offseason. Weird things can happen,” Stripling said. “(Building up us a starter is) just kind of making sure I’m ready if someone were to go down and I slip into the rotation or compete for a job.”
As 2016 proved for Stripling, anything can happen in the spring. So beyond the pair serving as starting pitching depth for the 2018 season, both are competing for a spot in the starting rotation — despite what appears to be a full house.
In 2016, Stripling was cut from Major League Spring Training Camp and sent to the Minor League side, only to return to win the fifth starter spot after an injury to Mike Bolsinger, among other factors.
“Guys like Brock, Ross Stripling, Henry Owens (who the Dodgers acquired off waivers from Arizona in the offseason), some other guys we have in camp, it makes sense obviously right now for us to stretch them out two, three, four innings as we get deeper into camp just to kind of see how it’s playing out,” said manager Dave Roberts. “You can always taper those guys back, but to build them up as starters, which Brock and Ross we see as starters — Henry, as well — by way of injury or performance, something could change. So we want to make sure we build them up.”
Stripling and Stewart combined to start 25 games over the last two seasons. However, Stripling and Stewart were effective relievers last season.
Stripling, who was mostly a starting pitcher his rookie season in 2016, was a valuable innings eater out of the bullpen in 2017. He led all Dodger relievers with 69 1/3 innings. In those games, he had a 4.02 ERA. Eighteen of Stripling’s 47 relief appearances were two innings or more. In those games, his ERA was 2.72.
“If I was going to pitch the seventh inning, they’d call down in like the fourth because it would take me forever to warm up because that’s how it was as a starter,” Stripling said. “Then I kind of got a routine down as the season went on. I enjoyed it the whole time. The bullpen’s fun.”
Stewart appeared in 13 games in relief last season and had a 2.18 ERA in 20 2/3 innings.
“I got used to it and got kind of into a groove,” Stewart said. “I learned last year I could kind of do both and kind of grew to love both, so I wouldn’t mind if I were in the bullpen or starting this year. Whatever the team needs.”
Stewart began the 2017 season on the disabled list with shoulder tendinitis and remained in Arizona after Spring Training to build up strength. This offseason he was more proactive and worked to strengthen the rotator cuff muscles to handle the load of a long season and to remain versatile for the big league club.
With the departures of Brandon McCarthy and Yu Darvish and continued recovery from shoulder surgery for Julio Urías, Stripling and Stewart’s value has gone up. So regardless of what happens this spring, both pitchers figure to impact the 2018 club.
“They’ve told me no matter what I’m going to help out this season,” Stewart said. “Obviously I’d like to be with the big league team, the five-man rotation. Realistically I know we have a bunch of studs on this team. I cane take care of what I can take care of. Everything else will fall into place. At the end of the day all I care about is winning. I want to be part of a championship team. Last year we came one game short. Now we have all the pieces necessary to finish the thing.”
