Three Dodgers takeaways one-third of the way through the season (2024)

CINCINNATI — When the skies opened up Sunday afternoon at Great American Ball Park, it didn’t cleanse the rotten series for the Los Angeles Dodgers. It merely prolonged a 4-1 loss to the Cincinnati Reds that capped off the three-game sweep.

It marked the Dodgers’ fifth straight loss, their longest losing streak since 2019. Things have not gone well of late.

“When you’re not hitting, it certainly seems lifeless,” manager Dave Roberts said. “I know it’s not from care and preparation. But the bottom line is, it’s about results. And we’re not getting them right now.”

The Dodgers entered Sunday having completed the first third of their season. They have played at a 99-win pace despite treading water for the past two weeks. That is what premium talent will buy you, even if it doesn’t provide the most encouraging day-to-day product when looking ahead to October.

A top-heavy and inconsistent lineup

The most challenging gauntlet in baseball may very well be the first three hitters Reds lefty Brent Suter encountered as the opener on Sunday. Mookie Betts and Shohei Ohtani have combined to be the best top two in the sport by a mile. Freddie Freeman has not yet matched the highs of his first two seasons with the Dodgers but has produced at close to career rates by OPS+ (138).

The reward for getting through that trio, along with Will Smith, Max Muncy (currently on the injured list) and Teoscar Hernández, who have been solid in the middle? Facing the second-worst bottom third in baseball. As Eric Stephen of True Blue LA recently noted, Dodger hitters outside those top six have combined to hit just .194/.263/.297. That combined .560 OPS would be the fifth-lowest mark for a qualified hitter, performing slightly worse than Pittsburgh Pirates infielder Jared Triolo (.568).

That represents a problem that has plagued the Dodgers through their spurts of inconsistency. The Dodgers entered Sunday at third in baseball with 4.98 runs per game, but haven’t leveled out that production. They’ve averaged fewer than four runs per game during this two-week stretch by squandering scoring opportunities.

Freeman’s one-out double in the ninth inning snapped a stretch of 22 consecutive scoreless at-bats with RISP.

“You never know which at-bat’s gonna break it open and hopefully that was one,” Freeman said.

Ohtani declined to speak to reporters Sunday through a club public relations official.

There’s at least one symptom that stands out.

“I think it’s a lack of consistency of approach,” Roberts said. “We’re trying to cover too many parts of the zone, in my opinion, and we’re missing the fastball. I think that’s the crux.”

The fastball numbers track, as the Dodgers aren’t crushing hittable fastballs the way they have in years past.

“I don’t think we’re hitting the fastball very well right now,” Gavin Lux said of a figure repeated in hitter’s meetings this week. “You look at all the advanced stats, it’s no secret.”

That, Roberts said, is more on execution than game plans: “The execution part of it is harder. But having a plan and being consistent, that’s easy. It is. It really is.”

Rotation emerges as a strength

Yoshinobu Yamamoto completed his day’s work before severe storms arrived in the sixth inning Sunday, causing a delay of just over an hour. Before that deluge, Yamamoto allowed four runs in the third inning as the Reds staged a persistent rally that included a walk and four singles. A pair of those hits came with two strikes and two outs.

“I really have to get through that inning holding them to zero,” Yamamoto said through interpreter Yoshihiro Sonoda.

That inning clouded what would have been another solid, if unspectacular start for the 25-year-old right-hander, who has a 3.51 ERA through his first 11 starts in Major League Baseball.

His progression has, in many ways, mirrored that of the rotation. Strong, if not elite just yet. Yamamoto is among the primary reasons the Dodgers have adopted a quasi six-man rotation, giving starters extra rest as often as possible. When James Paxton starts on Wednesday against the New York Mets, it will make just the third start through the Dodgers’ first 58 games that will have been made on “regular” rest.

And the group has performed. Tyler Glasnow has come off a pair of subpar outings but has yet to miss a start and has had stretches where he’s looked like a bonafide ace. Yamamoto has steadied himself after an uneasy start, as has Walker Buehler in his return from a second Tommy John surgery. Paxton has outperformed his underlying numbers long enough for the Dodgers to extract the value out of him they were hoping for this time of year. Gavin Stone has emerged in his role.

The Dodgers rotation entered Sunday with a 3.47 ERA that ranked eighth in baseball. Help is on the way in due time. Buehler is already back. Clayton Kershaw and Dustin May have started throwing bullpens. And on Sunday, Bobby Miller started a rehabilitation assignment with Low-A Rancho Cucamonga.

The bullpen is a revolving door

No team in baseball has used more pitchers than the Dodgers. That, of course, is never ideal.

Now look at the projected bullpen from spring training, and you’ll see why. Brusdar Graterol (shoulder) hasn’t pitched this year. Blake Treinen (ribs) missed the first month. Kyle Hurt made a few glittering appearances before hitting the shelf with a shoulder issue. Ryan Brasier popped his calf in warmups. Evan Phillips strained his hamstring playing catch. The Dodgers have 11 pitchers on the injured list, which has turned the final spots on the 40-man and active rosters into a carousel.

Nabil Crismatt and Dinelson Lamet have come up and been designated for assignment twice (Crismatt has since signed with the Texas Rangers). They gave Eduardo Salazar a whirl before he was designated for assignment. Elieser Hernández now occupies a spot in the Dodgers bullpen after not pitching in the big leagues a year ago. So does Yohan Ramírez, who has been designated for assignment three times by clubs in the first two months.

The upheaval has thrust a pair of veterans who have barely pitched the last two years (Treinen and Daniel Hudson) into the most valuable spots in the bullpen.

Yet the Dodgers owned the third-best bullpen ERA (3.30) in baseball entering Sunday. That is a remarkable feat, even if some of the underlying numbers aren’t as encouraging. The signs of that potential regression were quite clear on Friday.

Ramírez, in particular, had a difficult weekend, plunking four of the first eight batters he faced this series before Roberts hurried to the mound in the eighth inning.

Roberts didn’t want to burn a reliever for the final out of a miserable weekend. So, he put his arms around Ramírez as he spoke in his ear for a prolonged period. Then he left Ramírez out there to wrap up the inning on the next pitch.

“I wanted to kind of cut it off before it really spun out,” Roberts said. “And I just tried to reassure him and give him some confidence, love on him a little bit, and try to take a little bit of pressure off. … You got to try to do everything you can to show him you care and give him some confidence.”

(Top photo of Dave Roberts and reliever Yohan Ramírez: Dylan Buell / Getty Images)

Fabian Ardaya is a staff writer covering the Los Angeles Dodgers for The Athletic. He previously spent three seasons covering the crosstown Los Angeles Angels for The Athletic. He graduated from Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication in May 2017 after growing up in a Phoenix-area suburb. Follow Fabian on Twitter @FabianArdaya