If the Dodgers do not win the National League West or (Lord forbid) do not make it into the 2025 postseason, which is highly unlikely with only 11 regular season games remaining and a (now) 2.0-game lead over the NL West second-place San Diego Padres, Tuesday’s embarrassing 9-6 loss to the NL East first-place Philadelphia Phillies at Dodger Stadium very well could be the reason why.
How so, you ask?
In the simplest (and kindest) of terms, it was a game that they absolutely positively should have won, but for another bullpen failure – this one of epic proportions.
With his team leading 4-0, and with Dodgers starting right-hander Shohei Ohtani having thrown 5.0 innings of no-hit ball, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts pulled our generation’s Babe Ruth after making 110 pitches of which 68 were strikes.
Within minutes of replacing Ohtani on the mound (but keeping him in the game as his designated hitter), Roberts’ bullpen imploded – again.
Messrs. Justin Wrobleski, Edgardo Henriquez, Jack Dreyer, Anthony Banda, and (uggh) “closer” Blake Treinen embarrassingly allowed Philadelphia to score nine runs on eight hits, thus obliterating Ohtani’s no-hitter.
And what did the Dodger skipper have to say postgame about his team’s on-going bullpen failures? Pretty much the same rhetoric we’ve been hearing all season long after his bullpen blows a game:
“Um, yeah, ah… they clearly, you know, they’re lacking confidence. Um, I think that it’s ah, you know, it’s kind of, they all want to pitch well, they all want the opportunities, and, um, you know, they’re just kind of, ah, they’re not making good pitches when they need to, and, a little careful, ah, at times, and, um, so, I think it…it… it, I think for me, I believe in the talent, um, but right now, they’re just kind of, ah, you know, just don’t have confidence that, ah, they need to have, um, to… to be consistent. So, when you’re facing a team like this that, you know, won a division that’s going to grind at-bats, um. you’ve got to continue to make good pitches, and, ah, when you don’t, they’re gonna capitalize.“
(SportsNet LA)
On the (somewhat) bright side, “Babe” Ohtani crushed a 430-foot solo home-run to right field to lead off the bottom of the eighth inning to pull to within one of the Phillies at 6-5, but it was – once again – too little, too late.
(SportsNet LA)
player in MLB history to hit 50 home runs and strike out 50 opposing batters in the same season.
(MLB.com)
Without beating this dead horse any further, hopefully Tuesday night’s disaster will become nothing more that another one of those ‘remember when’ games and not ‘the’ game that prevents them from winning the division or (Lord forbid) prevents them from advancing to the 2025 postseason, which is highly unlikely with only 11 regular season games remaining.
Play Ball!
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