SAN DIEGO – After a season in which he claimed baseball hates him, Tanner Scott reviewed all that went wrong. The first year of a four-year, $72 million deal he signed to be the Los Angeles Dodgers’ closer qualified as a disaster. Scott did not throw a single pitch during the postseason as the Dodgers repeated as World Series champions, which provided plenty of time for reflection and a simple evaluation.
“I sucked,” Scott said. “I mean, plain and simple.”
Answering the “why” is both clear-cut and complicated. He did not execute well enough with two strikes or when ahead in the count, allowing as many home runs in those situations (six) as he had total homers in any situation over the previous two seasons combined. His mechanics were a mess at times. Scott left too many pitches over the plate at inopportune times.
At a low point last September in Baltimore, Scott surrendered a walk-off blast to Samuel Basallo on (you guessed it) a two-strike count. Scott’s assessment that night was that “baseball hates me.” He then proceeded to get walked off the next night, and again a week later.
Now, he is holding baseball’s hottest bullpen together. Dodgers relievers have not allowed a run in 29 consecutive innings, the franchise’s longest streak since at least 1998. This has come without Edwin Díaz, whom the Dodgers gave $69 million and Scott’s closer role to this offseason, and who is recovering from elbow surgery.
“He’s been a very important, stabilizing force,” pitching coach Mark Prior said of Scott, who has a 1.37 ERA through 21 appearances and looks like the guy the Dodgers thought they signed two offseasons ago.
Having Scott back to himself, manager Dave Roberts said, “has helped us out big.”
So much of the story with Scott comes with what happens when the reliever gets to two strikes. No pitcher in baseball has enticed hitters to chase this season at a higher rate. A year ago, Scott’s chase rate ranked in the 99th percentile according to Baseball Savant. His stuff can be overpowering, as long as it does not leak back over the heart of the plate. That’s what happened far too often last season.
“I’d get the two strikes, and I’d leave the ball in the heart of the plate, and it was causing a lot of damage,” Scott said.
The Dodgers knew this and stressed the point to Scott last season. Scott knew this, too, but the struggles were already deep. When he did miss his spots, the ball wound up over the middle instead of out of the zone, where he might have been able to induce a swing-and-miss. Opposing hitters didn’t miss, and Scott got crushed to the tune of a 4.74 ERA while serving up 11 home runs.
“Last year was weird because he came in and he was throwing a ton of strikes,” Prior said. “Problem is, he was throwing strikes at the wrong times.”
Tanner Scott with two strikes
202420252026
ZONE%
49.9
51.3
36.4
WHIFF%
19.3
13.2
21.6
BA
.107
.182
.114
OBP
.174
.247
.152
SLG
.145
.303
.182
% of total PAs
58.8
62.1
65.7
Prior said Scott’s uptick in strike-throwing, especially late in counts, was not the Dodgers’ idea. Some of it, Prior said, is “the volatility of a pitcher.” The club worked with him to make some tweaks to Scott’s mental cues, trying to ensure that in the times when he inevitably missed, he didn’t miss in spots where opponents could slug. Every step forward was followed by a step back.
That isn’t happening as much this season. When Scott has needed to get hitters to expand, he’s done that. He’s throwing fewer pitches in the zone with two strikes than he did even two years ago, when he was one of the most feared relievers in the game. Scott is trusting that the swings and chase will come, while avoiding the damage that destroyed his 2025 season.
Maybe all Scott needed was a fresh start.
“I just tried washing it away,” Scott said. “Literally, when January 1 happened, new year, new — just going back to what I used to do and just being yourself and trusting your ability and believing your stuff. (It’s) kind of going out there with a ‘F you, F it,’ like mindset, and just rolling.”
Scott spoke Monday afternoon at his locker in the visiting clubhouse at Petco Park, reflecting on all that went wrong in 2025. The next night, against a San Diego Padres club nipping at the Dodgers’ heels, he showed what was going right.
The left-hander entered a tied game with two on and two outs in the seventh and quickly got a two-strike count on Ramón Laureano. Scott fired a fastball well above the zone that didn’t elicit a chase. When he didn’t execute a slider on the next pitch, leaving it up rather than in the dirt, Laureano crushed it to the warning track, where Teoscar Hernández hauled it in.
An inning later, Scott executed better.
Against the right-handed Manny Machado, the reliever fired fastballs on the outer half of the plate and sliders that snapped just off the inside corner and down toward Machado’s feet. Scott quickly got into an 0-2 count and proceeded to vary the looks that Machado was seeing — first a fastball down, then a fastball up and away, then another way up the ladder before challenging Machado over the plate. When Machado fouled them all off, Scott buried a slider in the dirt. Machado waved over it for a strikeout.
Scott got a quick first-pitch out from Xander Bogaerts. Then, he refused to budge from his game plan against Jackson Merrill. He didn’t throw a single pitch above the knees and was content to let Merrill walk. When Nick Castellanos quickly got into an 0-2 count, Scott didn’t throw a single pitch in the zone.
Eventually, Castellanos chased a full-count slider off the plate to get Scott out of the inning.
Scott’s four outs helped bridge things for the bullpen as the Dodgers capped a 5-4 victory.
Scott is not eager to reflect on what has gone right for him this season. It is understandable to avoid declaring victory in mid-May. But this is the version of Scott he and the Dodgers were hoping to see. Each outing is building on the last. With that comes confidence.
“So much of this game is just, do you feel confident in your stuff?” Prior said. “Do you feel confident? It’s the chicken before the egg. … Do you get the results, or do you need results to build the confidence? Sometimes it’s both, sometimes it’s neither. But again, everybody gets a fresh start.
“Last year just kept snowballing, and it just seemed like every time he was trying to come out of it, something would happen. … He’s a good pitcher, and sometimes guys just have bad years.”
