No breathers from playoff pressure — just ask Dodgers’ Mark McGwire
Mark McGwire has advice he plans to share with every Dodger before Friday’s playoff opener: Don’t forget to breathe.
“The pressure of the playoffs, everything is magnified,” the Dodgers hitting coach said. “Guys tend to tighten up, and the reason why you tighten up is you forget to breathe.
“So if you breathe and you relax, really good things are going to happen.”
If only if it were that easy.
Even with the proper breathing techniques, McGwire batted just .217 with a .349 slugging percentage in 42 postseason games, well below his regular-season averages of .263 and .588.
“The postseason,” former Dodgers outfielder Rick Monday said, “is a different animal.”
Monday, a two-time All-Star, never tamed that animal. He hit one of the most important home runs in franchise history, but Monday batted just .210 with two runs batted in over nine playoff series. That game-winning home run against the Montreal Expos, the one that sent the Dodgers to the World Series in 1981, was the only one he hit in postseason play.
“It’s the same game on the field [but] it’s a different game,” Monday, now a Dodgers broadcaster, said of postseason baseball. “It’s a different game because of the attention. It’s a different game because of the importance. It’s a different game because of the very short season.
“So it’s easy to say slow the game down. But it’s difficult to do because of the immediacy. You’re only going to get so many pitches. You’re only going to have one chance to make that catch, make that throw. And until you’ve experienced it as a player it’s difficult to understand.”
Yet, for all the All-Stars who struggled in the playoffs there are an equal number of unsung players who hit all the high notes on baseball’s biggest stage. Oakland’s Gene Tenace, who had five homers during the 1972 regular season, hit four in the World Series to win MVP honors. Josh Beckett, then of the Florida Marlins, had never thrown a complete game in two major league seasons before he pitched two shutouts in the 2003 postseason.
Dodgers coach Steve Yeager, who hit much better in 11 postseason series than he did in 15 regular seasons, said the key is keeping things simple.
“You have to approach it, a playoff game, the same way you do during the season,” said Yeager, who shared the World Series MVP award with teammates Ron Cey and Pedro Guerrero in 1981. “Don’t try to do more than you’re capable of doing. Just play your game and try to relax.”
That can be difficult under the searing heat of the playoff spotlight. Dodgers left-hander Clayton Kershaw is arguably the best pitcher in baseball, favored to win his second straight Cy Young Award and third in the last four years, yet he’s been burned in the postseason. His playoff record is 1-3 with a 4.23 earned-run average in nine games. That includes allowing seven earned runs in four-plus innings in Game 6 of last year’s National League Championship Series, a 9-0 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals that eliminated the Dodgers from the postseason.
Kershaw said he’s learned from his experiences.
“Honestly, my first two years, I didn’t really have a huge role,” he said. “I guess last year was good experience for me. It’s kind of what I consider my first year. So yeah, I can learn on that, for sure.”
Teammates A.J. Ellis and Hanley Ramirez made strong showings in their first playoff appearances last fall, each hitting .323. That was over 10 games, though — about a week and a half’s worth of the regular-season schedule.
Take such a small sample of anyone’s career and a Cy Young winner such as Kershaw can look like a journeyman middle reliever while a player such as Ellis can hit 80 points over his lifetime average.
“Some of the greatest players in the game have had bad, bad, bad playoff experiences. And then you get another guy that all of a sudden explodes . . . and he’s the most valuable player,” said Dodgers coach Dave Lopes, who played in 11 postseason series, hitting over .300 in two of them and under .170 in two others. “Why does that happen? Nobody knows.
“I don’t believe guys choke. I just believe guys sometimes get too excited. And they don’t know how to control that anxiety or whatever it is because of the impact of what’s going on.”
Fail while everyone’s watching and that can become your legacy.
“Bill Buckner’s remembered for missing one ground ball,” Yeager said. “How many did he catch?”
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