Dodgers News: Bobby Miller Ditches Game Plan That Brought Him Success Early

Dodgers rookie hurler Bobby Miller is working his way through that fun part of his first few months as a big leaguer. The part where things go bad.

Over his first four starts, he was exceptional while posting a 0.78 ERA. In his last two starts, he's surrendered 13 runs in 9.2 innings... that's a 12.10 ERA.

Those numbers are bad, sure. But they don't tell the full story of how things have gone wrong. In both starts, he cruised over the first four innings. Then things came undone in the fifth. Miller thinks he knows where things went wrong.

“I started off with a a ton of fastballs, a lot of fastballs out there. So maybe it wasn’t effective later in the game as it could have been because I gave them a really heavy dose of fastballs early in the game. I probably could have mixed it better the whole entire game instead of waiting until the end to start mixing it, you know, mix it the whole time, which protects my fastball a little more so it gets on them a little more.”

One thing that resonates after seeing his assessment of his struggles is something he said after his first start. He told Dodgers' reporter Kirsten Watson that he didn't shake off catcher Will Smith once. Every pitch Smith called, Miller threw and he seemingly operated that way for at least his first two or three starts.

"I put all my trust in Will, he's a great catcher. He called an amazing game, I didn't shake him off once. He took me to the promise land but getting the first pitch of the game as an out really helped me settle in." @BMilled15 on his MLB debut. pic.twitter.com/b4aMfa0tYC
— SportsNet LA (@SportsNetLA) May 24, 2023

A key to the right-hander's success was the balanced mix of fastballs and offspeed pitches. That, of late, has changed.

“He just kind of forgot about secondary pitches and they were putting the ball in play," manager Dave Roberts said after Miller's most recent outing.

A look at his Baseball Savant page shows the drastic increase in fastball (sinker) usage.

Batters are hitting Miller's sinker at a .293 clip in June fueled mostly by Astros hitters going 7-14 on the pitch over the weekend.

The numbers show that maybe he should go ahead and let Will do the game calling for now.