Tanner Scott working through tweaks during first month with Dodgers

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ARLINGTON, Texas — The Los Angeles Dodgers’ new $72 million closer has converted all but one of his nine save chances in the season’s first month, but has also unsettled stomachs. He’s posted a 2.25 ERA through his first 12 appearances in his new uniform, yet has hardly looked dominant. He arrived with a history of trouble throwing strikes, yet hasn’t given out a single walk to the first 44 batters he’s faced. His hardest-thrown pitch this season (97.7 mph) was thrown on the other side of the world.

To read too much into Tanner Scott’s first weeks on the heels of the largest contract given to a reliever this offseason is to stir panic. Scott has been a work in progress in the role. He’s also been effective.

“I mean, I’ll take outs however I get it,” Scott said at his locker over the weekend at Globe Life Field. “Swing-and-miss. Soft contact. Contact. I’ll take outs.”

He’s recorded them. It’s been a perplexing start nonetheless. The 30-year-old left-hander dominated last postseason with the San Diego Padres while throwing a fastball that sat at 98 mph. He still hasn’t hit that figure this year. Opposing hitters have just a 14.7 percent swinging strike rate against him this year, down from 15.8 percent, a mark that was 15th among big-league relievers last year. Half the batted balls hit off of him this season have been hit 95 mph or harder off the bat.

“It’s something I’m not worried about,” Scott said.

“I think it’s also a function of trying to keep everything in perspective,” assistant pitching coach Connor McGuiness said.

Just look at how Scott has started in the past, McGuiness said, and there’s at least one explanation.

Scott’s velocity typically takes a while to settle in. While that’s happening, he usually sacrifices contact — opposing hitters will make more of it. The only real difference between this month and previous Aprils for Scott appears to be in the thing he’s actually doing better than in the past: limiting walks. He has yet to issue a free pass in 12 innings this year.

Some of that is by design. The Dodgers have encouraged Scott to remain in the strike zone as much as possible this season, getting out ahead of Scott’s walk-prone tendencies. Entering Sunday’s 1-0 victory over the Texas Rangers, he threw pitches within the strike zone 56.6 percent of the time, the highest rate of his career. There are trade-offs.

“We’re asking him to fill it up a little more,” McGuiness said. “He’s not expanding the zone, which would lead to more miss, typically, and trying to get those weaker outs as it goes through. Who knows if that’s kind of cost him a couple of hits here and there.”

With his stuff a tick down, he has less room for error.

“It’s just not as teethy as it has been and will be,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “The fastball, I think, just doesn’t have that life that I expect we’ll see.”

That will course-correct some as the stuff improves. Scott pointed to issues with the timing of his delivery affecting his early velocity lull. His slider has lost some bite as a result, as well.

Scott has, in turn, brought ideas over to the Dodgers’ player performance staff, poring over the biometric data as a means of correcting the issue. It’s something Scott hinted likely would have been a longer process a year ago when he was a Miami Marlin.

“I feel like at the start of every season I’m not throwing 99, 100 every time,” Scott said. “Would I want to be? Of course. But we’ve got a lot of good information here and it’s helped. … Last year (with Miami), I would’ve been searching it and trying to figure out (through) video by myself.”

Things are already ticking up. Six of his 20 hardest-thrown fastballs this season came in his 14-pitch save on Sunday against the Texas Rangers, with his final pitch of the day — a 97.3 mph fastball that Will Smith caught and threw out Wyatt Langford trying to steal second base — being his hardest since his first outing of the year against the Chicago Cubs in the Tokyo Dome.

It was still a stress-inducing outing. Langford led off the inning with a single. Scott managed just one swing-and-miss. One of the outs came when Josh Jung lashed a 107.5 mph line drive off a fastball that Chris Taylor was able to handle in left field.

Sunday was a good day, even if there’s still progress to be made.

“We’re refining the mechanics, they’re getting better,” McGuiness said. “Now we’re just going to look for the room to improve and see if he can get that swing-and-miss back. But we’ve got no doubt that in due time, he’ll be right back to where he needs to be.”

(Photo of Tanner Scott: Jerome Miron / Imagn Images)

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