Tanner Scott has turned a difficult Dodgers debut into a far more useful role. Through his outing May 24 in San Diego, the left-hander owned a 1.25 ERA in 2026 and looked more like the reliever the Dodgers paid for when they gave him a four-year, $72 million contract.
That matters now because Scott is no longer being judged as a ninth-inning fix that went wrong. After the Dodgers brought in Edwin Diaz on a three-year, $69 million deal over the winter, Scott shifted into the setup job and has thrived there, giving Los Angeles a power arm to bridge games instead of finish them. Through May 24, he had struck out 32.5% of hitters while walking just 3.9%, a sharp bounce from a 2025 season in which he led baseball in blown saves, posted a 4.74 ERA and did not throw a pitch in the postseason.
The numbers behind the turnaround are as strong as the surface stats. Scott was getting a first-pitch strike to three out of every four batters and was averaging nearly 97 mph with his fastball. His xERA sat at 2.97 and his FIP at 2.39, while his 17.9% swinging-strike rate ranked seventh among big league relievers. That is the profile of a pitcher missing bats and staying ahead in counts, which is exactly what the Dodgers needed after last season’s collapse in the late innings.
It is also a reminder of how quickly roles can change in a bullpen built around expensive answers. Scott made the All-Star team in 2024 and was signed to close the ninth inning for a defending champion, but his struggles in 2025 pushed him out of that job before the season could even settle. The Dodgers’ choice to use him as a setup man after adding Diaz matched the work Scott had done best earlier in his career with the Padres, and it has taken the pressure off one reliever while strengthening the entire relief unit.
What happens next is simple enough to watch and hard enough to call: if Scott keeps pitching like this, the Dodgers may never need to put him back in the ninth inning at all.
