Dodgers: How Did We Get Here?

THE PITCHING

The starting pitching over the last few weeks has been puzzling for people watching this team. The team has seen a bit of everything, such as Rich Hill taking a no-hitter into the 10th before losing on a walk off home run in Pittsburgh.

There have been awful starts like Rich Hill only lasting three and two-thirds innings and giving up six earned runs in Arizona. And there have been your solid starts that give your team a chance to win but don’t blow anyone away, like Rich Hill’s six innings, two-run start at home against Arizona.

Now, I don’t mean to pick on Rich here; he’s just been a perfect example of how the starters have gone over the last month. Every guy on the team has dealt and been shelled recently and there just doesn’t seem to be one thing anyone can point to. Call them highs and lows, ups and downs, whatever it is; it’s inconsistency.

Kershaw has the lone win during this streak but his start two nights ago showed he still has a little work to do coming back from the injury. I don’t think anyone is worried about him, but there is some concern for the rest of the staff.

To blame this group, though, is again not the right move. For every good start they have, the run support seems to evaporate. For every rough one, the comebacks just don’t appear to be coming to fruition at this time, and not one pitcher in the pen seems to be a consistent stopper.

For the rotation, looking forward, only three or four will start games in the postseason. Kershaw and Darvish are locked in, Wood would have to pitch himself out of the spot, and the last opening will be a battle. Between Hill, Ryu and Maeda, the next couple starts will be critical to determine who rises to the top and in the end consistency will win out.

Speaking of consistency, can we all just take a moment to appreciate Kenley Jansen? Night in, night out, he has got it done for the Dodgers in 2017. The problem is just getting the ball in his hands in a situation that matters.

This is where the rest of the pen comes in. They have been great at times, especially in the first three months of the season, and have been bad, like the last 14 games.

We have seen a lot of new faces on the mound with the rosters expanding and, for the most part, they haven’t fared too well. Beyond top-ranked prospect Walker Buehler, no one that the team has brought up has really shined.

At the same time, the arms that had been getting it done all year have started to falter as well, Pedro Baez more so than anyone.

This all relates to the way that the front office chooses to try and find quality arms in the pen without having to pay the premium price for them. 

I’ll never get over the front office spending $48 million on McCarthy for four years the same offseason they didn’t want to pay Andrew Miller a similar price. He would sign with the Yankees for 4-years, $36 million before being traded to the Indians and becoming a gigantic part of their postseason run as a high-leverage reliever. He’s under contract through next year.

Obviously, they learned a bit of a lesson from this and paid Jansen this past offseason, but the team still hasn’t addressed the rest of the pen in the way they were capable of doing.

That seems to be the only thing in this article that may have some concrete backing when you try and find a reason for all of this, but that is too small of a thing to concentrate on at this time, this late in the year, with the best record in baseball.

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The pitching needs to get better, but it needs a whole team playing good baseball to do so. They certainly can’t be blamed entirely for this streak, but they could be the demise of the team come the playoffs.

One thing I would like to see would be Buehler getting the same type of tryout that Alex Verdugo is getting in the outfield. Although he will start in the future, getting him in some leverage situations out of the pen now, while controlling his pitch count, seems like a good move now and preserves his future. Plus, he’s really, really good and that helps.

To answer the question at the top of how we got here, how did we sink so low? It’s baseball; there really isn’t much more to it than that. This Dodger team has won with their best lineup and their backups; they just aren’t doing that now.

No team has ever had 1-13 stretch in a season and won a World Series, that’s what Ken Rosenthal tweeted yesterday morning about the Dodgers.

Well, no team has ever had the 50-game stretch the Dodgers had this year. No team in recent memory has had as many comeback wins as this Dodger team has. 

Most importantly, no team in the MLB has the all-around talent that matches the Dodgers.

Next: Should Darvish Make Playoff Rotation?

Baseball is weird, this losing streak is weird, but in the grand scheme of things, these 13 games could just be another fun fact in what will be one of the most memorable seasons in the Dodgers’ long and celebrated history.

Submitted September 8th at 2:45 p.m, all stats reflect accordingly.