ANAHEIM — Who could have imagined that by mid-August, Justin Wrobleski would be at the top of Dave Roberts’ trust tree?
Then again, the allegorical greenery that represents the current level of confidence in the Dodgers’ relief pitchers has looked more like a malnourished shrub in recent weeks. Anyone know the right plant food to replenish this thing before the San Diego Padres – the first-place Padres – show up at The Ravine on Friday night?
Another lead blown, another close game lost Wednesday night at Angel Stadium, and in the wake of the Angels’ 6-5 victory – achieved on Logan O’Hoppe’s go-ahead two-run single in the eighth inning on Edgardo Henriquez’s 103.2 mph four-seamer – it must be noted that in the history of the game, only five times has a defending World Series champion been swept in a season series the next season.
And these Dodgers are responsible for two of them. The Milwaukee Brewers, who right now look like the best team in baseball, went 6-0 against Los Angeles. And so did the Angels – and yes, I phrased that deliberately, because I think it’s safe to say that many, many Angel fans would prefer that Arte Moreno change the name back to Anaheim, or even California, and end his attempt to annex L.A. for advertising purposes.
The Angels aren’t a candidate for best team in baseball honors, at least not for a while. But they’ve looked it against the champs, and their grit and competitiveness suggests that General Manager Perry Minasian had the right idea when he avoided anything resembling a fire sale at the trade deadline.
The idea, he said at the time, was to give the youngsters like O’Hoppe and Zach Neto and Nolan Schanuel and their peers the opportunity to play meaningful games, even if they were mainly meaningful for the opponents.
The Angels are five games back of the final American League wild card spot following Wednesday’s victory, with four teams between them and that third spot.
But they play hard, they don’t scare, and even when they’re a wee bit overenthusiastic – like having two runners thrown out at third when they were down by a run on Wednesday night, one of those on a what-could-he-have-been-thinking attempted steal by rookie Bryce Teodosio – effort is not an issue.
“We all do it every night – we go back and we do autopsies on every game, and you look back at how close we’ve been to winning series, winning or sweeping a series and being on the right side of that equation,” Angels interim manager Ray Montgomery said. “I think if you added it all up it’d be about the size of a stack of, you know, four papers. But it’s just the inexperience, the timing and just guys’ performance getting everybody aligned.
“Baseball’s tough that way.”
(As an aside, if Montgomery’s reference was to a stack of newspapers … well, first of all, bless him. And second, those papers today are a lot skinnier than they used to be.)
But it is one thing when you are playing for pride, or experience, or an education in winning that could pay off years down the line. It is far different to struggle as a team with championship expectations and a massive payroll.
It is especially excruciating to have blown a nine-game division lead in 41 days. On July 3, the Dodgers completed a sweep of the Chicago White Sox to move nine games ahead of San Diego and San Francisco in the NL West.
Since then, the Dodgers are 12-21. And a bullpen that logged a ton of innings early in the season has buckled under the strain, with both injuries and inefficiency (and in some cases both in the same guys) turning that trust tree into a nightly ordeal of searching for anyone dependable.
Wednesday night it bit them. Wrobleski gave the Dodgers two scoreless innings, after Shohei Ohtani made it through 4⅔ innings and Anthony Banda got the final out in the fifth. But Wrobleski came out in the eighth after back-to-back walks, and Henriquez – who was called up Tuesday when Brock Stewart went on the injured list and pitched 1⅓ scoreless innings then – kept pumping triple-digit fastballs but gave up one hit too many.
This is Roberts’ dilemma: He would like to get more mileage out of his starting pitchers. But Yoshinobu Yamamoto couldn’t get out of the fifth on Monday night, Emmet Sheehan gave him five innings on Tuesday night but five relievers followed him to the mound, and Ohtani’s first attempt to go five on the mound came up two outs short, thanks to Neto’s two-run double that trimmed a 5-2 Dodger lead to 5-4.
And if Henriquez had escaped the eighth with the lead, Roberts said Alexis Diaz would have pitched the ninth. Right now, with Stewart joining Tanner Scott, Kirby Yates, Michael Kopech and Brusdar Graterol on the injured list and Blake Treinen and Vesia struggling, there are no surefire options.
“As far as the ’pen, these are the guys we have,” Roberts said. “And I think for me it’s just kind of trying to put guys in the best position, but also being mindful of how much they’ve been used. So it sort of goes back to the starter and trying to push them if I get the opportunity to do so.”
He wouldn’t second-guess the organization’s lack of major moves at the trade deadline, nor should he be expected to. But Andrew Friedman’s suggestions the other day that the front office did all it could will sound awfully hollow if relief pitching is responsible for another postseason downfall.
But keep in mind that there are still 41 games left, plenty of time for this to turn. And there are enough veterans in this clubhouse, with enough experience deep into October, who understand that bad streaks happen, and it’s possible to overcome them.
“It’s not like these guys aren’t going out there and giving it their all,” shortstop Mookie Betts said. “Sometimes you just don’t get it done. … I think it’s encouraging to know that we’re giving ourselves a chance to win every night. So it’s not like we’re going out there just laying eggs.”
And yes, the Padres series that begins Friday night in L.A. and the three-game set next weekend in San Diego, are huge. “But we can’t make it that way,” Betts said. “We have to just look at it as the same game as today, play our game and not try to be too high or too low.”
At times like these, I guess, clichés are comforting.
It’s notable that over the last few days Roberts did have some sharp criticism of individual players’ decision-making on the field, including Ohtani. But by and large, he said, “the thing that I appreciate about this club is there’s no finger pointing, there’s accountability. And I think that we do a good job of looking at ourselves and saying, ‘Hey, what can I do better?’ And we can all be better. So it’s not a lack of care.
“And I talk about preparation all the time. So I know it’s not complacency. I mean, our guys are playing their tails off and it’s going to turn. But I know Max (Muncy) said it yesterday. I’ve said it before. You can’t feel sorry for yourself. And that’s something I don’t expect from our guys.”
Yet this is the catch: The only things measured in the standings, and the only things on which this organization is judged, are wins and losses.
All of those other things? They’d better help you win.
jalexander@scng.com