Entering the 2025 season, the Los Angeles Dodgers had been without Tony Gonsolin since Aug. 18, 2023.
As the 2022 All-Star was preparing for his comeback year, a back injury sustained during spring training further slowed down his return to The Show. After finally making his season debut at the end of April, Gonsolin has made three starts, and according to manager Dave Roberts, the right-hander is looking like his familiar self again.
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“I think that what he’s doing right now is signs of 2022, and also, you have the experience of a guy that is seasoned, really knows what he’s capable of. It would be really helpful.” said Roberts.
Gonsolin is sporting a 2.81 ERA over 16 innings with 21 strikeouts to four walks.
His most recent start, on just four days’ rest, consisted of five scoreless innings, three hits, and a season-high 84 pitches.
“Really impressed,” Roberts said of Gonsolin’s outing on Sunday. “I think the first-pitch strike is huge. He’s on the attack. He’s striking the split, shortening it. He can use a slider, curveball. He’s got a legit four-pitch mix, and today, it was actually encouraging to see him touch 95 (mph) too.
“Big lift for us.”
Gonsolin’s fastest pitch was 95.9 mph during his last outing, with his average four-seamer velocity totaling 93.5 mph. This led to batters swinging at 29 of his 84 pitches Sunday with seven whiffs, a category in which he is in the 98th percentile of among active pitchers.
The 30-year-old spoke on puzzling batters, but also what it means to him to play quality innings and raise his pitch count as the season progresses.
“As these last three starts have shown, I can do it,” Gonsolin said. “I can create miss when I need to. Just missing that going deeper in the game, so hopefully we can get one of those really soon.”
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Photo Credit: Dale Zanine-USA TODAY Sports
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One Response
Would be nice, and helpful to the bullpen, if Roberts would take the kid gloves off and let Tony pitch seven innings. I think that the Dodgers are so snakebit by the injury bug that they are overdoing it in some cases where pitchers could go a little longer, especially when pitch counts are low (like the other night against Arizona) but I guess they feel that caution is the word of the day. Sometimes I think that encourages pitchers to throw harder and with more spin (The bain of elbows and shoulders) than if they knew that 7 innings was the expectation. That is why I believe pitchers across baseball are getting hurt…. by the expected pace of the game…. Maybe now the “Catman” has shown what he us capable of all this stupid and inane trade talk of shipping Gonsolin somewhere else for an outfielder can finally be put to rest. He and May, along with Yamamoto (and to a lesser extent Sasaki) are keeping the Dodgers in it at the moment…