Lmao Bullpen

THIS GUY Brad Mills-USA TODAY Sports

The Good News: The Dodgers offense scored 6 runs tonight and 17 runs this entire series. Enrique Hernandez hit a dinger raising his wRC+ to 139. The Cubs won.

The Bad News: The Pirates offense facing the Dodgers bullpen

At this point i’m kinda just grasping at guys who were semi available and imploring the Dodgers as to why they weren’t pursued. “Craig Kimbrel?” “Aroldis Chapman?” “David Robertson?” “Joaquin Benoit?” “JONATHAN PAPELBON” GUH.. The excuses for not trading for an elite/very good bullpen arm are ample “TEH PRICE IS HIGH” “NOTHING IS GUARANTEED” but we’re looking at a Dodgers squad that legitimately has nobody to pitch the middle innings, and on days where Juan Nicasio and JP Howell are unavailable, there is nobody that can come in with any hint of reliability.

This creates a shitty situation because not “overpaying” for relievers is fine in theory because you want to be competitive for a world series AND compete for years to come, but if a part of your squad is in such disrepair (like last season) where competing for a world series almost isn’t possible (like last season), then what’s the point?

I’ve said this for the longest time, Jim Johnson was fine when looked at in the right context, a groundballer who’s useful (however that proposition looks god awful at best), but if he’s the best the Dodgers did at the deadline, then boooooy do the Dodgers have a problem.

His line today? 0.2 IP 1K 1 BB 8 earned runs whether that should have been allowed to happen is a question that should probably be asked at some point, but he did and my god a 108 ERA in a single game is a special special thing.

Oh and Joel Peralta gave up 2 dingers in this game his seasonal line? 5.40 ERA 5.60 FIP 5.20 xFIP. Make it stop.

Don’t get me wrong, while this post might sound like an doomsday type overreaction, the bullpen should be better, Mike Bolsinger, Juan Nicasio, J.P. Howell, Kenley Jansen, Luis Avilan, Yimi Garcia, Pedro Baez sounds like a pretty okay bullpen, is it enough? Who knows, but it’s significantly worse than if the team would have traded for a Robertson/McGee/Chapman type talent.

Anyways, Wood looks good when he’s not totally tired, and Jimmy Rollins has made us forget all about Corey Seager.

But Kiké is about to be a lot more important cause Howie Kendrick‘s hamstring exploded when he beat out a grounder to first base, so hello Jose Peraza? Sigh can’t we forget about this debacle