Dodgers: 3 changes that can help LA leapfrog Giants in second half

The Los Angeles Dodgers have withstood their early-May slump. They’ve shed pitchers along the way, but they’ve mostly clicked on all cylinders in a first half that ended with them playing their best baseball. They’ll likely get better in the second half, but they’re still 56-35 and 30-14 at the full-capacity friendly confines of Dodger Stadium.

And yet — and YET! — they still remain two games behind the San Francisco Giants at the All-Star break.

Instead of angrily asking, “How?” and “Why?” though, we’ll just calmly assess how the Dodgers can easily reverse this narrative in the second half.

Are the Giants “for real”? Of course they are! How real they are, though, we’re not positive. Are they Wild Card For Real or Hold Off the Dodgers’ Charge For Real?

Entering 2021, LA likely thought they had it made. A 110-win ceiling? Sure, sign us up. Only viable divisional rival is a burgeoning Padres team that was already beaten back by this same Dodgers core last postseason? Great! Looking forward to relegating them to the Wild Card Game.

Instead, though, the Dodgers have encountered the same thorn they’ve pulled out of their toes for the past 60 years, and have gone through an unexpected roster purge of their own. The pitching has been a real challenge. Several key components to the offense have gone down injured, and some haven’t reemerged. Their main rivals have no fear of facing the supposed All-Star team that was assembled to run Hollywood all summer long.

In order for the Dodgers to distance themselves into the summer’s muggier months, they’ll need to make these adjustments.

3 things that must change for the Dodgers to leap the Giants in 2021.

3. Get Corey Seager and “Real” Cody Bellinger Back

Short of trading for Kevin Gausman and Buster Posey at the deadline, the return of Corey Seager and the return to form of Cody Bellinger will be the clearest way for Los Angeles to tip the scales.

The last we heard about Seager, he was in the midst of a “plateau” in his rehab, and Dave Roberts’ hope that he could return prior to the All-Star break clearly didn’t come to fruition. The shortstop (in his walk year) still hasn’t appeared in a game since May 15, and posted a quiet 117 OPS+ in his first month-and-a-half of the season before the unfortunate fracture. He’s a monstrous part of this team — some might say the MVP! — and will be able to swing the narrative somewhat once he returns.

As for Bellinger? Breaking news: he’s not a true talent 66 OPS+ guy. The fact that the Dodgers have gotten to the 56-win mark at the break without the real Belli showing up more than once or twice is stunning and … yeah, it shows why this team was projected not just for first place, but for historically great things. Lose May, lose Kershaw, never really have Bellinger or Seager and you’re still just a pair of games back of the league’s best record.

For the order of operations to flip in the NL West, though, both men will have to return to something approximating full strength. It won’t even take a laser-focused fire-spewing run to the top of the National League. Normal levels of production should do it.

2. Bring Josiah Gray (and Andre Jackson?) to the Bigs

Dodgers top prospect Josiah Gray can help this roster sooner rather than later, and there’s no better time to see what you have than right after the deadline, when there might be some other newbies joining the roster (we’ll get to that in a minute).

Gray’s been largely absent from competition this season after the shortened (and canceled) 2020, safely building back up to full strength after suffering a shoulder impingement in his first action of the year. His most recent start was a well-timed stepping stone, though, featuring four innings of shutout ball, complemented by four strikeouts and zero walks. According to the Dodgers’ brass, Gray must be at a level where he can throw 75 pitches/five innings comfortably in order to be promoted. Extrapolating his most recent outing out on a longer timeline (53 and four) and you’ve got a clear roadmap that will allow him to join the big club in the coming weeks. Despite a lost 2020, April and May, Gray’s arrival no longer feels terribly far off. Whether he’ll be the Tony Gonsolin or Julio Urias of 2021, though, remains to be seen. Rotation or ‘pen, Josiah? What’s your speed?

And speaking of packing the ‘pen, might the Dodgers want to try Andre Jackson out there, too, to conserve some of his innings and spark the relief corps? The team’s Futures Game representative has a 1.06 WHIP in his age-25 season at Double-A Tulsa, and has tossed 50 innings (with 63 strikeouts) after 114.2 in 2019 and, obviously, zero last year. Conventional wisdom would dictate that a pitcher increase their innings step by step year over year, and Jackson probably would’ve been ticketed for 140-150 under normal circumstances. His previous career high seems like a fair cap this time around, though, and maybe some MLB work out of the back end might be a wiser way for him to spend September, at least. These could be two huge stretch run additions from the upper levels of LA’s system.