Dodgers News: After a Reset, Jimmy Nelson Dominated Angels in Final Tune Up

On the final day of spring training, Jimmy Nelson finally figured it out. After his last appearance where he didn’t record an out against the A’s, the Dodgers shut the right-hander down for a physical and mental reset. Nine days later, he had his best outing of the spring.

Nelson tossed a clean sixth inning in LA’s loss to the Angels on Wednesday night. It was the first outing in nearly a month where he didn’t allow a run, a hit or a walk. He threw 12 pitches to get 3 outs, and 7 of those pitches were strikes. In his last appearance, he didn’t hit the strike zone in 13 pitches, so 7 strikes is pretty dominant.

After the game, Dave Roberts liked what he saw out of the reliever.

“I think for Jimmy, the overall command of his breaking balls [on Wednesday night] — the fastball played in the strike zone, which is really good. I just think those bad misses… just trying to get back so quickly from this big process of surgery and recovery, rehab. I think he wants it all right now. For me, it’s just slowing things down which, tonight he did a good job of, he didn’t let it spiral out. He was efficient.”

Via SportsNet LA

With that bad misses line, Dave caught himself and instead focused on the positives. But he was pushed by a reporter about the bad misses.

“I think with him, sometimes he wants it too bad and sometimes when people try too hard, the body doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to. I thought he was really fluid, I liked his demeanor. With that, the stuff was sharp and came out the right way.”

Nelson will still open the season on the injured list, but if he can show the ability to throw strikes consistently over the next few weeks, he could get back into the bullpen picture sooner rather than later.

The Dodgers declined Nelson’s $1.1 million option in November only to strangely bring him back on a $1.2 million deal at the start of spring training. When he was last healthy, he excelled in LA posting a 1.86 ERA over 28 games before his elbow gave out. He spent the 2022 season with the organization while recovering from Tommy John surgery and now is hoping to get back to being a productive big league outs-getter.