Dodgers' champagne problems looming as 3 young starters could vie for rotation spot

Going into the season, the Dodgers looked like they could have not five but nine plausible starters by the end of the regular season. They started with Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Dustin May, and Roki Sasaki, but Tony Gonsolin, Emmet Sheehan, Shohei Ohtani, and Clayton Kershaw were all on the back burner. Not to mention, Landon Knack, Justin Wrobleski and, more distantly, Bobby Miller were considered backup options.

Two starts into the year, Snell went down, then Glasnow followed at five, and Sasaki at eight. Kershaw reentered the fold, and then Gonsolin went down with an elbow issue. Ohtani has gotten back to pitching, but we may not see him throw more than four innings all season. Knack, Wrobleski, and Miller all made it pretty clear they weren't going to be the answers.

However, the Dodgers may finally be getting back to a place where they're spoiled for choice. Sheehan came back and threw five innings of one-hit baseball before inexplicably being sent back to the minors (and pitching six perfect innings in next start), Wrobleski shifted the narrative on Sunday with a six-inning scoreless appearance in long relief, and Ben Casparius is being built up to take on full starts.

Emmet Sheehan, Ben Casparius, and Justin Wrobleski are finally giving the Dodgers the surplus of starters they wanted

Yamamoto and May have managed to stay healthy, and Kershaw is almost back to averaging five innings per start. Ohtani is also offering some relief to the bullpen, and Glasnow is undergoing a rehab assignment. Even if the Dodgers don't get Snell, Sasaki, or Gonsolin back through the rest of the season, Sheehan, Casparius, and Wrobleski could return the rotation to six.

There are risks, of course. Sheehan has looked great but is still coming back from Tommy John, which necessitates some caution; Casparius still has fewer than 70 major league innings under his belt; and Wrobleski has been unpredictable.

But the Dodgers desperately need their starters to give them length, and all three look like more than acceptable options to do that reliably and decently. It also bodes well for next season, when LA will likely lose May and Gonsolin to free agency but will have homemade backups at the ready to turn to on top of the expensive starters they'll almost inevitably buy.