Losing streaks happen — sometimes even long, horrific ones. But when a team clinches a playoff spot 10 straight seasons and has essentially controlled the National League West for a decade, fans begin getting impatient and overly frustrated when a club is at its worst.
There are so many things to digest about the 2023 Los Angeles Dodgers, and we’re not even at the halfway point of the season. Obviously, injuries have been a critical part in the way the season has played out so far, from Julio Urias’s hamstring issue and Dustin May’s elbow to Gavin Lux’s ACL injury to Max Muncy’s latest stint on the injured list.
Blend more than a dozen untimely injuries with some very poor play and underachieving, and the Dodgers are sitting in third place in the division, trailing both the Arizona Diamondbacks and the San Francisco Giants.
You know things are bad when your skipper must resort to using Jason Heyward and David Peralta in the cleanup spot to drive home one of the best first threes in MLB — Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Will Smith — who are also underperforming, to a degree.
Freeman has put up All-Star numbers and has been one of the club’s lone bright spots with the lumber. Still, before Muncy’s injury, the 32-year-old lefty slugger was hitting a paltry .191 with an OPS that was sliding rapidly. In addition, Chris Taylor has been sitting with a knee issue, but his current .207 average isn’t much better than any of the prospects the team could run out in the starting lineup in his place.
Nevertheless, it’s not even fair to talk about the team’s struggles without mentioning the bullpen, which seemingly has no relief in sight. The Los Angeles relief corps just isn’t stinking it up in the National League, but the team’s collective 5.04 bullpen ERA is the second worst in the majors only to the Oakland Athletics.
None of the calls skipper Dave Roberts is making seem to be working. Granted, Roberts and his crew don’t have much talent to work with as far as either starters or relievers go, but some of his in-game decisions aren’t doing the team any favors.
I rarely criticize Roberts, but why not allow Emmet Sheehan to start the seventh inning of Friday’s opener? Of course, Sheehan needed to come out of the game close to when he did, but the Giants were salivating when Brusdar Graterol went to the bump at the top of the seventh frame, knowing that Sheehan had shut them down all evening.
It’s just an example of momentum. Let Sheehan throw to one batter. If he gets one or two outs on a handful of pitches, great. If he surrenders a hit, go to the mound and get him.
The crowd goes bonkers with a standing ovation when Sheehan walks back to the dugout after Roberts takes the ball, and even more electric happens when Graterol rushes in from the outfield gate.
Instead, Sheehan is pulled between innings and the crowd doesn’t get a chance to release the positive energy it was accumulating for the first six innings.
Momentum and positive energy certainly don’t win games, but there’s no question they can help. And the Dodgers need all the help they can get right now.
Let’s just hope they can stay in contention before things get any worse.