For almost any other team in the Dodgers’ position, the first half of the season would have been a flying success.
They entered Sunday with a seven-game lead in the National League West. They were the NL’s highest-scoring offense. And according to Fangraphs, they have the second-best odds of any MLB club of winning the World Series, with a nearly 15% probability, per the outlet’s analytic computer models.
This Dodgers team, however, carries far loftier expectations.
Any time they look like anything less than a World Series favorite, it feels like a failure.
That’s why, after suffering a wave of recent injuries and playing .500 ball for much of the last two months, they’ve been simply trying to “weather a storm,” as manager Dave Roberts put it, and get to this week’s All-Star break.
To win games right now, “it feels like we have to play perfect baseball,” Roberts said.
And on Sunday, in a 4-3 walk-off loss to the Detroit Tigers that sent the club into the All-Star break with a series defeat and losses in eight of their last 10 games, the Dodgers did anything but.
Given the shorthanded state of their current rotation, they had to start journeyman right-hander Brent Honeywell, who was claimed off waivers Saturday and arrived in Detroit close to midnight.
With key hitters still missing from their lineup, their offense fell silent after a three-run first inning, including a squandered bases-loaded opportunity in the top of the ninth.
In what was a disastrous culmination of their relievers’ heavy recent workload, their patchwork bullpen game fell apart in the ninth inning.
With no other options available at the end of the game, right-handed reliever Yohan Ramírez was asked to attempt a six-out save while pitching for a third straight day. Though the veteran managed to navigate the eighth, he capitulated in the Tigers’ two-run ninth.
Zach McKinstry led off with a triple. Justyn-Henry Malloy tied the score with an RBI single. Then, on back-to-back Tigers bunts, Ramírez made fatal defensive mistakes, booting one sacrifice attempt from Ryan Vilade to put runners on first and second, then misfiring on a throw to third base that allowed the Tigers’ winning run to cross the plate.
“My main focus in that situation [was] to get the out at third and try to get the double play with the [next] hitter,” Ramírez said in Spanish afterward. “But it didn’t turn out the way I wanted.”
For him and a Dodgers team now under-.500 (23-24) since May 21.
“It’s certainly a frustrating way to finish off the first half,” Roberts said. “You look at the ninth inning, and you have no one left available [to pitch].”
Roberts wasn’t exaggerating.
To simply get to the ninth inning, the Dodgers constructed a creaky bridge of hold-your-breath relievers to preserve their early lead.
Honeywell threw three scoreless innings. Ryan Yarbrough gave up two runs in 2⅔ innings after that. Michael Petersen narrowly escaped a jam in the sixth. Anthony Banda, who was pitching for the fourth time in five days, got a couple of outs, as well, to complete the seventh.
From there, however, Ramírez was the Dodgers’ only option.
Closer Evan Phillips and set-up man Blake Treinen were both unavailable after pitching the previous two days. Another high-leverage righty, Daniel Hudson, was unavailable because of back tightness that popped up this weekend, though Hudson believes it should dissipate during the All-Star break. And though Roberts had Alex Vesia warming, he didn’t want the left-hander pitching a full inning in what would have been his fourth appearance in the last five days.
“You’ve got to kind of try to middle it, thread the needle, and give yourself a chance,” Roberts said.
Instead, McKinstry’s triple “opened the floodgates,” Roberts said with a sigh. “That’s baseball.”
At least, that’s the kind of baseball the Dodgers have too often been forced to play recently.
Currently, they have only four pitchers in their rotation, though top prospect River Ryan is expected to be called up after the All-Star break. The Dodgers are missing Mookie Betts and Max Muncy with injuries. Although some reinforcements appear to be on the horizon, they might still need further roster alterations before the fast-approaching July 30 trade deadline.
“Where we’re at, it’s hard putting runs across,” Roberts said, with his offense averaging barely four runs per game since the start of July.
As a result, “you feel like the starting pitchers, the relievers, they have to be perfect,” he added. “And that’s just hard to do.”
The good news is that several injured players are finally on the mend.
Joe Kelly (shoulder) and Jason Heyward (knee) are expected to be activated after the All-Star break. Tyler Glasnow (back) and Brusdar Graterol (shoulder) might not be far behind them. Betts (broken hand) and Yoshinobu Yamamoto (shoulder) are ramping up activity in their rehabs.
Clayton Kershaw could be back before the end of the month after impressing in a scoreless three-inning rehab outing with triple-A Oklahoma City on Saturday. He will make at least one minor-league start Friday.
“If he looks as good as he did last night on Friday, I think anything should be on the table,” Roberts said of Kershaw’s potential timeline to return. “I’m definitely open to [him returning after] that.”
In the meantime, the Dodgers are still in survival mode, trying to scrabble together production on the mound and at the plate.
They still hit the All-Star break in good position overall. For most other teams, these would be champagne problems.
But the Dodgers, as they always have under Roberts and president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, are graded on a stricter curve.
Instead of celebrating their 56-40 record, they are entering the All-Star break weary and exhausted, in the ominous position of simply trying to weather a storm.
“That was not the way we wanted it to end [the first half],” first baseman Freddie Freeman said. “I guess the break came at a good time.”