The latest lesson in Dalton Rushing’s big-league education takes place in the bowels of Dodger Stadium. The Los Angeles Dodgers’ home ballpark offers a hub for modern hitting technology, and now it is being used for something else. On the days when Rushing serves as a backup to Will Smith, the young catcher straps on the gear and tests out a new frontier.The Dodgers have used their Trajekt Arc pitching machine as a preparation tool for hitters. The machine displays opposing pitchers’ deliveries and release points while also replicating a pitcher’s specific pitch characteristics. Andy Pages credits the machine with refining his swing decisions during his breakout season.Last month, the Dodgers tried something new, having Rushing catch bullpen sessions off the machine to refine his pitch framing skills and sharpen his knowledge of the zone for the new Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) challenge system.“Obviously, we want to be the best at every little aspect that the game brings us,” Rushing explained recently to The Athletic. “It’s just an opportunity for us to get better at it.”Rushing has won just five of his 11 ABS challenges when behind the plate, a 45 percent success rate that is well below the league average rate for catchers this season (58 percent entering Tuesday) and below that of Smith (67 percent), who entered Tuesday tied for fourth in most successful challenges among catchers (30).So the Dodgers cooked up a plan to help Rushing improve that skill. What started as a thought experiment has required trial and error. Calibrating an electronic zone for specific hitters in that day’s lineup is a tedious process. The Dodgers wanted to ensure that it was a realistic experience, so when Rushing isn’t catching, they set up the Trajekt Arc machine with the night’s Dodgers starter, such as Justin Wrobleski last Friday against the Phillies.Each simulated pitch from Wrobleski provided a data point. First, it captured how Rushing caught it. Second, it gauged where the pitch was in the zone, which Rushing could check on a monitor off to the side of the machine. Last, it was about whether the pitch was worth an ABS challenge.“I think any kind of reps and like the ability to have a mental model to go back and say, ‘Hey, that looks like it was pretty far out (of the zone)’ can only help,” Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes said. “It’s not the easiest thing in the world to tackle, but there’s value on the margins in all these things.”Rushing is not new to the ABS. He played with it in the minors in 2024 and 2025. He is new to being on the bench, however, and the lack of game-speed reps slowed his progress in recognizing the ins and outs of the zone. The Dodgers have tried to keep Rushing busy ever since they called him up for the first time in May 2025, frequently having him catch bullpens to develop a rapport with the pitchers he’s working with.