Anyone who has had the opportunity to interview Dodgers left-hander Rich Hill has undoubtedly noticed two things about him: 1) He has a great sense of humor and; 2) He is brutally honest.

The is no argument that having a great sense of humor makes for a great interview and can lighten the mood in the clubhouse, but the bottom line is that it has absolutely nothing to do with a player’s success. On the other hand, being brutally honest speaks volumes about a player’s personality and character.

Case in point: Former Dodgers right-hander Chad Billingsley was a great guy and had good success in his eight seasons with the Dodgers. But whenever the former 2003 first-round draft pick had a bad outing, he always seemed to have an excuse for it, something like “I thought I pitched really well, but… .” Yet if Rich Hill has a bad outing, he will be the very first person to say something like: “This one’s on me, I didn’t execute my pitches,” etc. And while a win is a win and a loss is a loss no matter how you spin it, owning up to your mistakes not only shows honesty and integrity, it also lends to receiving forgiveness from disgruntled fans.

That being said, even brutal honesty has its limits. It’s one thing for a pitcher to have an occasional clunker – and even the best ones do – and to accept responsibility and write it off as being just one of those games, but should they start having several clunkers, this is where things can get a bit dicey.

Since joining the Dodgers at the August 1 trade deadline Hill has been a bit of an enigma. Although he has enjoyed decent success during most of his 12 seasons in the major leagues with a career mark of 38-28 and career ERA of 4.10, he has been dealing with a lingering blister issue on his left middle finger this season. That said, both he and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts adamantly insist that it is no longer an issue.

Although Hill was traded to the Dodgers on August 1, he didn’t make his first start until August 24, causing a great deal of anxiety among Dodger fans. Fortunately, he has been outstanding since.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

More on that enigma thing.

Although the 36-year-old Boston native was selected by the Cubs in the fourth round of the 2002 draft as a starting pitcher and spent his first five major league seasons as a starter, he was moved to the bullpen after being traded to Red Sox in 2010.

It did not go well.

In his five seasons as a reliever (for the Red Sox, Indians, Angels and Yankees), he went 3-2 with a mediocre 3.89 ERA. But since returning to the starter role after returning to the Red Sox in 2015 and with the Oakland A’s and Dodgers in 2016, Hill is 14-6 with an excellent ERA of exactly 2.00. Why the big turn around? As former Dodgers manager Don Mattingly would say: “He knows how to spin it.” In other words, Rich Hill has an outstanding curveball.

According to Brooks Baseball, over the past two seasons Hill has thrown his curveball 41.55 percent of the time while throwing his four-seam fastball 49.45 percent of the time. After that his pitch selection drops off drastically with a slider 2.81 percent of the time, a change-up 2.00 percent of the time and a sinker or slow curveball less than one percent of the time respectively. In simple terms, if you are the Cubs you are looking fastball or curveball – period; and make no mistake about it, the Cubs are a very good fastball and curveball-hitting team. As such, Hill must … absolutely must locate his pitches well in Game-3 of the NLCS this evening.

If he does not, his great sense of humor and his brutal honesty will mean nothing.