Dodgers: Five takeaways from this past losing road trip

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May 16, 2017; San Francisco, CA, USA; Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts (30) attends batting practice before the game against the San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park. Mandatory Credit: John Hefti-USA TODAY Sports /

The Dodgers just completed their seven-game road trip against the Colorado Rockies and San Francisco Giants. Unfortunately, the Dodgers came out one game short in the series against the Giants and returned home with a losing road trip (3-4).

Things weren’t all that bad, however, for the boys in blue as they were able to get some positive injury news and surprisingly got healthier as the road trip completed. The club sits five games over .500 at 23-18 and is getting ready for a long ten game home stand against the Miami Marlins, St. Louis Cardinals, and Chicago Cubs.

Before this homestand gets underway, let’s take a look at some takeaways from this past road trip and what it means in the NL West.

May 18, 2017; Minneapolis, MN, USA; Colorado Rockies third baseman Nolan Arenado (28) and outfielder Gerardo Parra (8) celebrate the win after the game against the Minnesota Twins at Target Field. Mandatory Credit: Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports /

The Colorado Rockies Are Legitimate Contenders

Heading into a weekend series against the Dodgers last week, the surprisingly red hot Rockies held a game and a half lead over the Dodgers for first place in the NL West. The Dodgers and Rockies ended up splitting the weekend four-game series and the Rockies held on to their lead in the NL West.

Well, 41 games into the season, the Rockies are showing no signs of letting up and have extended their division lead over the Dodgers to 3 games. It’s really uncanny for this team to be producing this way based on the fact that they rank in the middle tier in offense and pitching team totals. Yet, the Rockies hold not only the best record in the NL West but are also tied for the best record in the National League with the Washington Nationals.

Coming into play today, the Rockies rank 11th in the MLB in offensive runs scored, 14th in team ERA, and 4th in team fielding percentage. Those are pretty modest rankings for a team that has a top three record in all of baseball. So I’m starting to wonder if there is some regression coming for Colorado and whether this team is a contender or pretender to make a run at the NL West crown?

If you’re asking me, I’m penciling them in as a contender. With the addition of Bud Black over the offseason, he’s really been able to get the young Rockies pitching staff to rally around the team, and that has been a big part of their success early on. The seasonal outlook for the Rockies year in and year out has always been “well they can hit, but do they have any pitching.” Well, at least through the first two months of the season it appears they have enough.

While their 14th ranked ERA isn’t anything to alarm the presses about, it’s a sign of improvement. Last season they had a team ERA just below 5.00. This season their ERA is 4.31 that’s nearly a run per nine innings of improvement. So it helps explain their best start in franchise history.

With an improved pitching staff and an always dangerous offense, this team has the talent to contend in the National League. That being said, their pitching staff is still young and should regress, so beating the Dodgers out for the NL West crown is unlikely. But I can very well see this team actively looking to buy pitching around the trade deadline to get into their first postseason since 2009.

May 17, 2017; San Francisco, CA, USA; Umpire Mike Muchlinski (76) holds back Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts (30) as both benches clear during the third inning of the game against the San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park. Mandatory Credit: Ed Szczepanski-USA TODAY Sports /

The Giants and Dodgers Rivalry Lives On

Although the Giants sit in 4th place in the NL West and are an abysmal eight games under .500 (17-25), there’s still a spark when they face the Dodgers. Coming off of a weekend series where they beat the Dodgers two out of three in San Francisco, the Giants now lead the season series against the Dodgers, six games to three.

It seems like every time the Dodgers and Giants meet up, regardless of records, the teams will always play a little harder to win the game. It was evident in the final game of the series yesterday afternoon when the benches cleared after Johnny Cueto threw at the head of Yasmani Grandal.

As you see, there were no punches thrown, but it’s clear that these games against these two teams mean a little extra for the players. Now, while it’s exciting for fans to see players get fired up, there’s a bigger issue to be looked at for the Dodgers.

Prior to the Dodgers win last night, the Dodgers had a slash line of .210/.287/.287 against San Francisco this season. That’s concerning production against a team that only has 15 wins on the season and explains how they have lost every series against the Giants so far.

To add further insult to injury, the club has only scored one run in 12 innings of work by starting pitcher Matt Cain who prior to this season, had a reputation of being crushed by the Dodgers.

There’s no secret the Giants get up to play against the Dodgers. We can always count on a close game when these two meet and perhaps even a little heated exchange. But what we need to start seeing is the Dodgers pull off some more wins in these divisional games.

May 16, 2017; San Francisco, CA, USA; Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Rich Hill (44) pitches against the San Francisco Giants in the first inning at AT&T Park. Mandatory Credit: John Hefti-USA TODAY Sports /

Dodgers Are Beginning to Get Healthy

Over the road trip, we saw the Dodgers activate three pitchers from the Disabled List. Hyun-Jin Ryu, Brandon McCarthy, and Rich Hill were all activated following missing only one start (excluding Hill). A good reason why these pitchers (for the exception of Hill) didn’t miss a substantial amount of time was that the club was taking advantage of the new 10-day DL rule.

We at Dodgers Way consider the recent DL use for the starting pitchers by the Dodgers as “phantom injuries.” In other words, injuries that allow the team to utilize the same roster spot without using any player options to continue to give pitchers extra days rest and use their depth. While McCarthy did have a dislocated nonthrowing shoulder, Ryu was really placed on the DL to give him additional rest.

But phantom injuries or not, the Dodgers now have a full rotation of pitchers activated. Roberts currently has six starting pitchers active and will utilize all six this week with Ryu pitching Thursday night. Following Ryu will be Alex Wood, Julio Urias, and Brandon McCarthy to close out the weekend series.

I mentioned during spring training that at some point this season Dave Roberts was going to have to utilize a six-man rotation. The team just has too many quality arms, and with the front office wanting to limit Urias innings, it makes the most sense. Outside of Clayton Kershaw and Alex Wood, none of the pitchers have proven to be healthy enough to solidify their spot in the rotation. Our Alex Perez wrote an article earlier today sharing his ideal five rotation starters. Check it out!

* 4:00 pm Update – Adrian Gonzalez has also been activated from the DL and will start today at first hitting 6th *

May 16, 2017; San Francisco, CA, USA; Los Angeles Dodgers second baseman Chris Taylor (3) runs the bases after hitting a solo home run against the San Francisco Giants in the sixth inning at AT&T Park. Mandatory Credit: John Hefti-USA TODAY Sports /

The Club May Have Finally Figured Out Left-Handed Pitching

According to Fangraphs, the Dodgers have improved their hitting against left-handed pitching during the first half of May! That’s pretty encouraging signs for a team that had opposing teams switch around their pitching rotation to throw more left-handers against LA.

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But all signs are trending up for this narrative that stuck with the team all last season and for the first month of this season. The club is 5-1 in their last six games when a lefty starts for the opposing team. The team could have very well been 6-0 if it wasn’t for a loss against Ty Blach on Tuesday night.

But the team is collectively hitting .264/.353/.439 against lefties during the Month of May. I know, it’s not world beating numbers, but it’s improvement, and that’s all we can ask for.

Also encouraging are the four home runs and 23 runs scored off southpaws. Leading the way for the club is surprisingly left-hander Cody Bellinger, who is hitting .421 with one home run and 8 RBI in 19 at-bats against lefties. Justin Turner is second in left-handed hitting production with a .333 average and 3 RBI in 22 plate appearances.

There’s reason for optimism with the club now that this narrative seems to be fading away. The month of May has shown flashes of dominance for the Dodgers but has also shown inconsistencies with scoring runs.

Next: Dodgers Ideal Starting 5 Pitchers

It’s reasonable to feel a lot better about the club as to where they’re at during the middle of May than when they started off slow in April. The team is getting healthy and once the lineup is back to full force that’s when we can truly evaluate the team. But even for now, with injuries and all the playing time questions, the Dodgers still look poised to make a deep run in October.

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Dodgers: Four takeaways from the past losing road trip