Andy Pages used to be viewed as a possible future designated hitter. Now he is helping define the Dodgers’ outfield from center, the result of daily work that turned a question mark into a strength.
That shift is part of why interest around the dodger game today is about more than a single lineup card. Pages and a coach finished another round of routine drills on Sunday morning, the latest step in a process that has sharpened his routes, reads and confidence in center field. Pages said in Spanish that the team kept attacking the specific areas where he had struggled and tried to improve them every day, adding that it was the only way to get better.
For the Dodgers, the payoff has been hard to miss. Pages’ emergence has solved a massive outfield question mark for a club that has been working around that problem for years, and it has done so with a player who was not long ago discussed in far different terms. What changed was not one dramatic mechanical fix but a relentless habits-first approach that kept stacking small gains until the defense started to look natural. That matters in a season when the Dodgers need certainty anywhere they can get it.
The same roundup also showed how thin the line can be between success and failure for a pitcher who has already found it this year. Tanner Scott posted elite results even though much of his process looks similar to last season, when too many two-strike pitches stayed in the heart of the plate. Scott said that when he reached two strikes, he would leave the ball in the middle and it caused a lot of damage. Last year ended with a 4.74 ERA and 11 home runs allowed, numbers that forced the Dodgers to work with him on subtle changes to his mental cues rather than a wholesale remake.
Mark Prior said Scott’s increase in strike-throwing last year, especially late in counts, was not the organization’s idea, but the club helped him adjust the way he thought about those moments. Scott said he washed away last season on January 1 and went back to what he used to do, trusting his ability again. He described the mindset as going out there with a ‘F you, F it’ approach and just rolling. That reset has helped explain why the results have looked so different even without a completely different toolbox.
Shohei Ohtani offers another example of a Dodgers pitcher adjusting without abandoning what works. In his second season as a Dodgers pitcher, he has simplified his mix depending on handedness, leaning on fastball and sweeper against right-handers and using fastball, sweeper and split against lefties. The other three pitches still appear on special occasions, but the trimmed-down plan shows how the club is trying to make each role cleaner and each edge more repeatable. For Pages, Scott and Ohtani, the same lesson runs through the day: simplify the job, repeat the work, and let the results follow.
