Julio Urias raises the bar in 2021
By: Cary Osborne
Tags: Dodgers, Trea Turner, Julio Urias, MLB

Julio Urias is 16–3 this season. (Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers)

by Cary Osborne

Trust the process. Even if it takes half a decade. Even if there are detours along the way.

Eventually, the path will lead to where it’s supposed to end.

The process for Julio Urías and the Dodgers has led each other to this point: He is the game’s winningest starting pitcher in 2021 and arguably one of the most valuable starting pitchers to his team.

“My career has always been a little bit limited as far as being able to go out there giving it that effort that I’m supposed to going out there, going from different roles,” Urías says. “This year, I have a ton of confidence in what the team and management’s been doing and giving me the opportunity to kind of expand my role, but kind of hand over the reins, so to speak. And I think that’s all faith in them and trusting them and letting me do what I can on the mound for every fifth day.”

After years of the Dodgers using the 25-year-old left-hander as a hybrid pitcher — where he excelled through stretches as a starter and a reliever — Urías has been a winner and, outside of Walker Buehler, the most durable starter for the Dodgers in a challenging year for starting pitching.

The Dodgers have used 19 different starting pitchers this season. Buehler has made every start. Urías has missed one, and that’s only because he was hit by a pitch on Aug. 13 against the New York Mets.

Throughout his career, Urías has pitched with a governor. First, as the Dodgers managed pitch counts and innings in the minor leagues beginning in 2013 when he made his pro debut at 16. And later, less than a year after his Major League debut as a 19-year-old and nearly a month shy of his 21st birthday, we Urías had anterior capsule surgery on his left shoulder in 2017. The injury kept him out of game action for 14 months.

With the limitations, he never before had exceeded 80 innings in a Major League regular season. His career-high was 79 2/3 in 2019. After a standout 2020 postseason, he blew past that number this June 15. He is now at 156 1/3 innings as he prepares to make his career-high 28th start of the season.

(Carrie Giordano/Los Angeles Dodgers)

“I think we’ve done a very good job, and obviously Julio is the main reason behind it, as far as managing him,” says manager Dave Roberts. “How you get to whatever number, whatever arbitrary number that we come up, that anyone comes up with, I think it’s how you get there is most important.”

Urías has pitched on five days of rest or more 17 times this season.

One marker for how the Dodgers have managed Urías — and all of their pitchers, for that matter— is stressful innings. In six of his first nine second-half starts, the Dodgers went to the bullpen after a 20-or-more-pitch inning in the fifth inning or later.

Urías reached the 100-pitch mark once this season, on July 8, when he threw a career-high 101 pitches. He threw 22 pitches in the first inning and didn’t have another inning of 20 or more pitches. He went seven innings that day in Miami, giving the Dodgers needed length between two bullpen games.

“You see what the bullpen has done the last few days and kind of put it on yourself to try to go as far as you can,” Urías said that day.

Urías followed a Dodger start of fewer than four innings 10 times this season. He rested the bullpen by pitching into the sixth inning in eight of those starts.

The Dodgers are 21–6 in his 27 starts this season. He is 16–3, leading the Majors in victory.

“I’m still from a school that wins (for pitchers) matter,” Roberts says. “It’s still the object of the game. And so, when Julio takes the mound to go deep enough to get a decision, and more importantly a win — and when you take them out your team wins — that means something.”

It helps that the Dodgers have scored six runs or more in games he has started 15 times this year. But in his last eight starts since July 21 he has a 1.42 ERA. He has allowed three home runs in those games and has struck out 46 batters to eight walks in 44 1/3 innings.

Trea Turner, now his teammate, faced Urías for the first time on April 10, 2015, in a Double-A game. He has five Major League plate appearances against him with two hits. Playing behind him has given him a new perspective.

“It seems like he believes in himself to make every pitch in every count every time. And when he doesn’t, he gets mad at himself, and he gets right back up there and continues to do what he needs to do to get outs for us and get big outs for us,” Turner says. “I knew he was special. I faced him in Double-A when he was 17. I know he was good then, and he’s going to continue to get better as he gets older.”

Last October, Urías earned the final out of the World Series, retiring all seven batters he faced in relief in Game 6. His trajectory is different this year. Urías figures to be an integral starter on their path to repeating as World Series champions.

“The bar has been raised for Julio,” Roberts says. “The way he goes deep into games. The expectation to win every time he takes the mound, being able to manage and navigate, minimize damage.”