past week

MILWAUKEE — The Dodgers have been here before.

This time last year, in a season that bore so many similarities to their current one, a first-place and highly touted Dodgers team temporarily lost its way.

Amid a deluge of pitching injuries (sound familiar?) and the absence of one of its hottest early-season hitters (Mookie Betts, who suffered a broken hand close to the same time Max Muncy went down with a knee injury this year), the club stumbled backward into the All-Star break, going 2-8 in its final 10 games of the first half and 1-5 in a Philadelphia/Detroit road trip that exposed undeniable flaws in its star-studded roster.

Twelve months later, another pre-All-Star-break tailspin has struck the now defending champions.

The Dodgers have lost six games in a row, swept in back-to-back series by the Houston Astros and the Milwaukee Brewers. Their romp through June and the first days of July (when they won 20 times in a 30-game stretch) has been stalled by sudden regression lately, with lackluster offense and a worn-down pitching staff contributing to the organization’s longest losing streak since April 2019.

Now, as he did then, manager Dave Roberts has downplayed any alarm.

“I think it is under the ‘it’s just baseball’ type thing,” Roberts said Wednesday after the Dodgers’ most deflating loss of their skid yet. “You never like to lose six in a row. It seems like we’re pitching OK. The defense at times has been really good. It’s just that right now we’re scuffling offensively, to have that big inning or to build an inning and get that big hit.”

But, also like back then, frustration is mounting as the Dodgers approach the trade deadline.

The Dodgers’ Hyeseong Kim looks up while swinging a bat during a game against the Milwaukee Brewers on Monday in Milwaukee.

(Aaron Gash / Associated Press)

“We can’t really feel sorry about ourselves, because there’s a lot of season left, and we know what we’re looking for,” veteran infielder Miguel Rojas said. “We’re looking to win another championship, and playing this kind of baseball is not gonna get us there.”

By “this kind of baseball,” Rojas means this kind of offense.

During the last week, a Dodgers lineup that leads the majors in scoring on the season has suddenly scored the second-fewest runs (10 total, and more than two in just one of their last six contests) of the league’s 30 teams. In that time, they are batting a paltry .190 with only four home runs, a whopping 61 strikeouts and an on-base percentage of .269.

The root causes of that malaise are easy to identify: The Dodgers have been without several key regulars (Muncy, Teoscar Hernández and, until Wednesday, Tommy Edman) in their starting lineup. Their three healthy superstars (Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman) are hitting a combined .194. Their depth options have offered little reprieve (Michael Conforto, Hyeseong Kim and James Outman have gone five for 38 while receiving increased playing time).

And, they’ve run into two talented pitching staffs, struggling against quality opposing starters such as Framber Valdez, Freddy Peralta and rookie sensation Jacob Misiorowski, and two hard-throwing bullpens from the Astros and Brewers.

Granted, even $400-million payrolls like the Dodgers go through such dips in a season. And while the losses have piled up, the team has maintained the best record in the National League (56-38) and a five-game edge in their division.

“We’ve just got to put some at-bats together, keep playing good defense and it’ll turn,” Roberts promised. “When you’re mired in it, it’s frustrating. But we still have some pretty good players.”

The concern, however, is how quickly the offense has turned in the absence of a few key players.

Freeman and Betts were both slumping in June, but the contributions of Muncy and All-Star catcher Will Smith (the only regular who has also stayed hot during this current losing spell) helped compensate. Ohtani’s numbers at the plate have declined since he returned to pitching, but balance at the bottom of the lineup from younger bats like Kim and Andy Pages made such struggles feel moot.

This week, conversely, has highlighted what can happen when the Dodgers face good pitching at anything less than full strength –– the kind of confluence of events that could quickly derail any postseason campaign if it were to happen again in October.

“You can’t replace All-Stars. You can’t replace guys that have won MVPs in the postseason. You can’t replace those type of things,” Betts said this week. “The next man has to step up and do what he can do. But I mean, you can’t replace those guys. You can only have someone come step up and do their best.”

The good news is, Edman has already returned from a broken pinky toe. Hernández is expected back in the lineup Friday from a foot contusion. And, although Muncy’s knee injury is longer-term, he is expected to return this season.

“It’s one of those things,” Roberts said, “where we’ve got to find a way to weather it.”

Still, the questions this week has raised will loom even if the Dodgers start to heat up again (as they did last year, when they started the second half with a five-game winning streak and 26-13 run overall).

Already, the bullpen was an obvious area of need heading into the trade deadline (especially after Michael Kopech recently underwent a meniscus surgery on his right knee that forced him onto the 60-day IL). The rotation could be, too, although the Dodgers remain confident about having Tyler Glasnow (who returned to action with five solid innings Wednesday) and Blake Snell (who is beginning a minor-league rehab assignment this week) healthy for the second half.

Now, the club will have to decide whether it needs another impact bat as well, potentially adding to a shopping list that has grown much longer than the team had expected after another big offseason of lavish spending.

After all, Freeman and Betts have yet to show signs of life amid career-worst slumps. Ohtani’s workload won’t get any easier as he continues to ramp up on the mound. And there’s no guarantee how Muncy will look once he returns, with Roberts noting his bone bruise will probably linger into next year.

It all leaves the Dodgers in a familiar position: Hopeful its talented, but hardly infallible, roster possesses enough firepower to win another World Series, but knowing that — like last year, when the team acquired Edman, Kopech and starter Jack Flaherty at the deadline — more reinforcements might nonetheless be needed.

“We have to do better,” Rojas said, voicing a recognition that has reverberated throughout the clubhouse of late, as the front office evaluates its options ahead of the July 31 trade deadline. “We gotta find ways to be a complete team that we know we can be.”

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — In truth, there was very little notable action on Sunday afternoon at Kauffman Stadium.

Which, in effect, is exactly how Justin Wrobleski liked it.

In the Dodgers’ 5-1 win over the Kansas City Royals — a victory that clinched the weekend series and gave the club a 5-1 record on this past week’s road trip — Wrobleski continued to quietly impress as a depth pitching option for the Dodgers, pitching six scoreless innings that were short on flash but long on substance; serving as the latest productive outing in his suddenly auspicious sophomore season.

“Justin’s confidence is at an all-time high,” manager Dave Roberts said. “And he’s a confident young man already.”

Entering the game behind opener Lou Trivino at the start of the second, Wrobleski made easy work of a struggling Kansas City offense, giving up just three hits and one walk in a six-strikeout showing as the Dodgers (53-32) pulled away at the plate.

Kiké Hernández hit a two-run homer in the second. Will Smith added a solo shot in the sixth. And by the time the team tacked on two more runs in the seventh, such extra insurance was already looking unneeded.

Instead, Wrobleski further raised his stock in what has been a surprise midseason rejuvenation, turning in his best career performance at the big-league level.

Over his 83-pitch outing, the Royals (39-45) only once managed to even put a runner in scoring position. They squandered all three leadoff hitters who reached base. And during their best opportunity to rally in the third, Wrobleski mowed through the heart of their order, sandwiching one strikeout of Jonathan India and fielder’s choice grounder from Vinnie Pasquantino with a statement-sending punchout of Royals star Bobby Witt Jr., getting him to whiff on a 96-mph fastball and putaway two-strike slider.

“Bobby Witt is one of the best hitters in the game,” Roberts said. “And for him to beat him with the fastball, he wasn’t doing that last year.”

Indeed, few saw Wrobleski’s surge coming this season.

After a choppy eight-game debut last year, when he had a 5.70 ERA, the 24-year-old left-hander’s first opportunity in the majors this season was a total disaster, giving up eight runs in five innings to the Washington Nationals back on April 8.

Wrobleski was optioned back to the minor leagues after that, and made only one MLB appearance over the next two months: a four-inning outing in mop-up relief duty during a May 15 blowout of the Athletics.

At the start of June, however, he was called back up to make a spot start in St. Louis, turning in a decent six-inning, four-run effort. And since then, he has continued to get better each time out. In his last 20 innings — all of them coming in bulk relief — he has conceded just four earned runs while striking out 21 batters. His overall ERA in five June appearances was 2.73.

“Having that bad one in Washington, honestly, set me back in a good way,” Wrobleski said. “I had to go back down, make a few adjustments.”

And now, he joked, that D.C. start “feels like it was three years ago.”

The biggest difference with Wrobleski of late has been his fastball. In that April start against the Nationals, it averaged just 93 mph. In every outing since, it has sat around 96-97 mph, and topped out above 99 mph.

Wrobleski credited the improvement with some small mechanical tweaks, having adopted a wider base in his pre-pitch stance and incorporated a rocking motion in his delivery to help him direct his momentum toward the plate.

But also, he said he has simply found a way to throw with maximum effort more consistently — coupling it with an increased reliance on his sinker to attack the zone and induce quick outs.

“I think it just goes back to me being me,” said Wrobleski, an 11th round pick out of Oklahoma State in 2021. “That’s how I got here was doing that. I got away from it a little bit, tried to quote-unquote ‘throw strikes,’ and when you do that, it leads to results that are not desirable. But at the end of the day, [I just want to] throw my best stuff for as long as I can until they take the ball. I think that’s been a major key.”

As a result, Wrobleski’s name is quickly rising among the hierarchy of young Dodgers pitching.

The fact that he was even on this road trip was a sign of the organization’s growing confidence in his abilities.

During the team’s last homestand, fellow young talent Emmet Sheehan returned from Tommy John surgery with four sharp innings, and seemed primed to occupy an open spot in the Dodgers’ rotation moving forward. However, with Sheehan not yet fully built up, the club elected to option him back to triple A and have Wrobleski pitch twice in a six-day span this week, with a five-inning, two-run outing in Colorado on Tuesday preceding Sunday’s gem in Kansas City.

Sheehan should be back in the majors soon, having pitched six perfect innings with 13 strikeouts in a start with Oklahoma City on Wednesday (manager Dave Roberts said Sheehan’s next outing will also be with OKC, though he could still rejoin the Dodgers before the end of their upcoming homestand).

But now, he’s not the only former prospect showing flashes of being an impact option in the majors.

“He’s changed a lot,” Roberts said of the team’s evaluation of Wrobleski. “We’ve always valued him and thought a lot of him as far as the talent. But right now, he’s getting major league hitters out … And in the spirit of getting opportunities while earning them, he’s doing that.”

President Trump’s decision to strike three nuclear sites in Iran will almost assuredly draw more criticism from some of his supporters, including high-profile backers who had said any such move would run counter to the anti-interventionism he promised to deliver.

The lead-up to the strike announced Saturday exposed fissures within Trump’s “Make America Great Again” base as some of that movement’s most vocal leaders, with large followings of their own, expressed deep concern about the prospect of U.S. involvement in the Israel-Iran war.

With the president barred from seeking a third term, what remains unknown is how long-lasting the schism could be for Trump and his current priorities, as well as the overall future of his “America First” movement.

Among the surrogates who spoke out against American involvement were former senior advisor Steve Bannon, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), commentator Tucker Carlson and Charlie Kirk, the founder of the conservative youth organization Turning Point. Part of their consternation was rooted in Trump’s own vocalized antipathy for what he and others have termed the “forever wars” fomented in previous administrations.

As the possibility of military action neared, some of those voices tamped down their rhetoric. According to Trump, Carlson even called to “apologize.”

Here’s a look at what some of Trump’s biggest advocates had said about U.S. military involvement in Iran:

Steve Bannon

On Wednesday, Bannon, one of the top advisors in Trump’s 2016 campaign, told an audience in Washington that bitter feelings over Iraq were a driving force for Trump’s first presidential candidacy and the MAGA movement. “One of the core tenets is no forever wars,” Bannon said.

But the longtime Trump ally, who served a four-month sentence for defying a subpoena in the congressional investigation into the U.S. Capitol attack on Jan. 6, 2021, went on to suggest that Trump will maintain loyalty from his base no matter what. On Wednesday, Bannon acknowledged that while he and others will argue against military intervention until the end, “the MAGA movement will back Trump.”

Ultimately, Bannon said that Trump would have to make the case to the American people if he wanted to get involved in Iran.

“We don’t like it. Maybe we hate it,” Bannon said, predicting what the MAGA response would be. “But, you know, we’ll get on board.”

Tucker Carlson

The commentator’s rhetoric toward Trump was increasingly critical. Carlson, who headlined large rallies with the Republican during the 2024 campaign, earlier this month suggested that the president’s posture was breaking his pledge to keep the U.S. out of new foreign entanglements. Trump clapped back at Carlson on social media, calling him “kooky.”

During an event at the White House on Wednesday, Trump said that Carlson had “called and apologized” for calling him out. Trump said Carlson “is a nice guy.”

Carlson’s conversation with Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) that day laid bare the divides among many Republicans. The two sparred for two hours over a variety of issues, primarily about possible U.S. involvement in Iran. Carlson accused Cruz of placing too much emphasis on protecting Israel in his foreign policy worldview.

“You don’t know anything about Iran,” Carlson said to Cruz, after the senator said he didn’t know Iran’s population or its ethnic composition. “You’re a senator who’s calling for the overthrow of a government, and you don’t know anything about the country.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene

The Georgia Republican, who wore the signature red MAGA cap for Democratic President Biden’s State of the Union address in 2024, publicly sided with Carlson, criticizing Trump for deriding “one of my favorite people.”

Saying the former Fox News commentator “unapologetically believes the same things I do,” Greene wrote on X this past week that those beliefs include that “foreign wars/intervention/regime change put America last, kill innocent people, are making us broke, and will ultimately lead to our destruction.”

“That’s not kooky,” Greene added, using the same word Trump used to describe Carlson. “That’s what millions of Americans voted for. It’s what we believe is America First.”

Alex Jones

The far-right conspiracy theorist and Infowars host posted on social media earlier in the week a side-by-side of Trump’s official presidential headshot and an artificial intelligence-generated composite of Trump and former Republican President George W. Bush. Trump and many of his allies have long disparaged Bush for involving the United States in the “forever wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Writing “What you voted for” above Trump’s image and “What you got” above the composite, Jones added: “I hope this is not the case…”

Charlie Kirk

Kirk said in a Fox News interview at the start of the week that “this is the moment that President Trump was elected for.” But he had warned of a potential MAGA divide over Iran.

Days later, Kirk said that “Trump voters, especially young people, supported President Trump because he was the first president in my lifetime to not start a new war.” He also wrote that “there is historically little support for America to be actively engaged in yet another offensive war in the Middle East. We must work for and pray for peace.”

In Kirk’s view, “The last thing America needs right now is a new war. Our number one desire must be peace, as quickly as possible.”

Kinnard writes for the Associated Press.

OXNARD, Calif. — At 6 a.m. Wednesday, Juvenal Solano drove slowly along the cracked roads that border the fields of strawberry and celery that cloak this fertile expanse of Ventura County, his eyes peeled for signs of trouble.

An eerie silence hung over the morning. The workers who would typically be shuffling up and down the strawberry rows were largely absent. The entry gates to many area farms were shut and locked.

Still, Solano, a director with the Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project, felt relieved. Silence was better than the chaos that had broken out Tuesday when immigration agents raided fields in Oxnard and fanned out across communities in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties that grow a considerable portion of the state’s strawberries, avocados and celery.

The organization, part of a broader rapid-response network that offers support and counsel for workers targeted by immigration raids, was caught off guard when calls started pouring in from residents reporting federal agents gathering near fields. Group leaders say they have confirmed at least 35 people were detained in the raids, and are still trying to pin down exact numbers.

In the past week, Solano said, the organization had gotten scattered reports of immigration authorities arresting undocumented residents. But Tuesday, he said, marked a new level in approach and scope as federal agents tried to access fields and packinghouses. Solano, like other organizers, are wondering what their next move will be.

“If they didn’t show up in the morning, it’s possible they’ll show up in the afternoon,” Solano said. “We’re going to stay alert to everything that’s happening.”

While agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol showed up at food production sites from the Central Coast to the San Joaquin Valley, much of the activity centered on the Oxnard Plain. Maureen McGuire, chief executive of the Ventura County Farm Bureau, said federal agents visited five packing facilities and at least five farms in the region. Agents also stopped people on their way to work, she said.

In many cases, according to McGuire and community leaders, farm owners refused to grant access to the agents, who had no judicial warrants.

California, which grows more than one-third of the nation’s vegetables and more than three-quarters of its fruits and nuts, has long been dependent on undocumented labor to tend its crops. Though a growing number of farm laborers are migrants imported on a seasonal basis through the controversial H-2A visa program, at least half the state’s 255,700 farmworkers are undocumented immigrants, according to UC Merced research. Many have lived in California for years, and have put down roots and started families.

Juvenal Solano, with Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project, said Tuesday’s raids in Ventura County farm fields marked a dramatic escalation in tactics.

(Michael Owen Baker / For The Times)

Until this week, California’s agricultural sector had largely escaped the large-scale raids that the Department of Homeland Security has deployed in urban areas, most recently in Los Angeles and Orange counties. California farmers — many of them ardent supporters of Donald Trump — have seemed remarkably calm as the president vowed mass deportations of undocumented workers.

Many expected that Trump would find ways to protect their workforce, noting that without sufficient workers, food would rot in the fields, sending grocery prices skyrocketing.

But this week brought a different message. Asked about enforcement actions in food production regions, Tom Homan, Trump’s chief adviser on border policy, said growers should hire a legal workforce.

“There are programs — you can get people to come in and do that job,” he said. “So work with ICE, work with [U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services], and hire a legal workforce. It’s illegal to knowingly hire an illegal alien.”

Ventura County strawberry fields had far fewer workers Wednesday, a day after federal agents targeted the region for immigration raids.

(Michael Owen Baker / For The Times)

California’s two U.S. senators, both Democrats, issued a joint statement Wednesday decrying the farm raids, saying that targeting farmworkers for deportation would undermine businesses and families.

“Targeting hardworking farmworkers and their families who have been doing the backbreaking work in the fields for decades is unjustified and unconscionable,” Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff said in their statement.

The California Farm Bureau also issued a statement, warning that continued enforcement would disrupt production.

“We want to be very clear: California agriculture depends on and values its workforce,” said Bryan Little, senior director of policy advocacy at the California Farm Bureau. “We’re still early in the season, with limited harvest activity, but that will soon ramp up. If federal immigration enforcement activities continue in this direction, it will become increasingly difficult to produce food, process it and get it onto grocery store shelves.”

Arcenio Lopez, executive director of MICOP, said he is especially concerned about the prospect of Indigenous workers being detained, because many cannot read or write in English or Spanish, and speak only their Indigenous languages. The organization’s leaders suspect that many of those detained Tuesday are Indigenous, and are rushing to find them before they sign documents for voluntary deportation that they don’t understand. They’re urging that anyone who gets arrested call their hotline, where they offer legal assistance.

Rob Roy, president of the Ventura County Agricultural Association, said he has been warning growers since November that this time would come and providing training on their legal rights. Many know to ask for search warrants, he said. But that still leaves undocumented workers vulnerable on their way to and from work.

“I think overall here, they’re fairly safe on the farms or the building,” Roy said. “But when they leave work, they’re very concerned.”

Elaine Yompian, an organizer with VC Defensa, said she is urging families to stay home, if possible, to avoid exposure.

“We actually told a lot of the families who contacted us, if you can potentially not work today, don’t go,” Yompian said, adding that they are able to provide limited support to families through donations they receive.

Families whose loved ones have been detained are struggling to understand what comes next, she said.

“People are terrified; they don’t know at what point they’re going to be targeted,” Yompian said. “The narrative that they’re taking criminals or taking bad people off the streets is completely false. They’re taking the working-class people that are just trying to get by.”

This article is part of The Times’ equity reporting initiative, funded by the James Irvine Foundation, exploring the challenges facing low-income workers and the efforts being made to address California’s economic divide.

Penelope Hocking and Caroline Conti both scored in the first half to lift Bay FC to a 2-0 victory over Angel City on Saturday.

Hocking opened the scoring with a rising shot from inside the box after a pass from Taylor Huff in the 23rd minute. It was Hocking’s second goal of the season and her second in consecutive weeks.

The referee awarded a penalty kick to Bay FC after Angel City goalkeeper Angelina Anderson came off her line and brought down Huff in the 26th minute. Conti converted the penalty for her second goal of the season.

Bay goalkeeper Jordan Silkowitz made four saves and picked up her third shutout.

Angel City were without defender Savy King, who is on medical leave after undergoing surgery for a heart abnormality. King collapsed in the second half of Angel City’s 2-0 win over the Utah Royals last weekend.

Before kick-off at PayPal Park, both Bay FC and Angel City wore shirts with ‘SK3’ printed on the front as a tribute to King. Angel City captain Sarah Gorden also held up King’s jersey during the team photo.

The win snapped a three-game winless streak for Bay (3-4-2). Angel City (4-3-2) has lost all three of its meetings with Bay FC.