The Dodgers sent the message Monday.
By designating veteran pitcher James Paxton for assignment, the team sent a clear indication of its faith in its pitching staff’s youngest arms.
Much could change between now and next week’s trade deadline, but for the time being the Dodgers are rolling with a young rotation, one that includes four rookies in Gavin Stone, Justin Wrobleski, River Ryan and Landon Knack (in addition to veterans Tyler Glasnow and Clayton Kershaw, who will return from the injured list this week.
Knack was on the mound Tuesday in the Dodgers’ 5-2 win against the San Francisco Giants, continuing his strong rookie season by giving up one run in five innings in front of 52,627 at Dodger Stadium.
The victory was the Dodgers’ fifth in a row coming out of the All-Star break, and was keyed by RBI doubles from Gavin Lux in the first inning and Shohei Ohtani in the fourth. Ohtani also added an RBI single in the eighth, finishing the night second in the NL with 73 RBIs.
Read more: River Ryan gets a standing ovation in his major league debut as Dodgers edge Giants
But Knack might have had the most effective performance — providing the kind of stress-free production the Dodgers will need from their young pitchers as they await reinforcements in the coming months (when Walker Buehler, Bobby Miller and Yoshinobu Yamamoto are all expected back).
“With young pitchers, the hard part is the unknown, the volatility and you can run a guy out there and he can’t throw strikes and can’t get through the second inning and then that kind of lingers for the next handful of days,” manager Dave Roberts said. “But the young guys that we’ve had this year, they’ve gone out and competed and thrown strikes and gave us valuable innings. It hasn’t blown up our bullpen.”
While Stone has been the star of this year’s rookie class, making a Rookie of the Year case with a 9-3 record and 3.19 ERA, Knack isn’t too far behind.
In eight starts, and nine total outings this season, the 26-year-old right-hander is 2-2 with a 3.07 ERA. He’d given up two or fewer runs in his first six starts, then on Tuesday bounced back from a couple of rougher recent outings (four runs in 4⅓ innings against the Arizona Diamondbacks and three runs in 4 ⅓ innings against the Philadelphia Phillies) by silencing the Giants’ slumping lineup, a second-inning home run by Tyler Fitzgerald proving to be his only blemish.
“I feel like I’ve just showed my stuff plays here,” said Knack, who…