A 14-game stretch was going to reveal something. Exactly what was up for debate. But something. For sure.
The Los Angeles Dodgers started their 14 games-in-14 days stretch as the best and most expensive team in baseball. That much was undisputed two weeks ago, even despite the team’s offensive struggles and bullpen question marks.
The Dodgers were 14-4 and had a 2.5-game lead in the National League West with those early season flaws. So those next 14 games would either reveal that this team was the best in baseball even when they weren’t at their best, or they’d find something close to their A-game and make everyone believe they were playing for second place, or those deficiencies would remain and expose that the Dodgers’ problems as being something that could hold them back from repeating as World Series champions.
The last of those 14 games was Wednesday night. The team finished the run 3-11.
The last of those three losses came against the Chicago Cubs, with the Dodgers’ three aces – Clayton Kershaw, Trevor Bauer and Walker Buehler – lined up to salvage something positive from this stretch. Of course, they were swept.
“We’re absolutely frustrated,” first baseman Max Muncy said. “We’re better than this. Period.”
Yes, that is true. The Dodgers, despite this ugly stretch of not being able to get right, are as talented as any team in the majors and are still the favorites to win the NL West – assuming their players stop sticking to the injured list like flies to sticky tape.
While the starting pitching has been decent despite the team’s record – entering Wednesday, the rotation’s 2.98 xFIP led all of baseball in the previous two weeks – the hitting has been brutally bad. In the same stretch, the offense’s 101 wRC+ was middle of the pack, as the number would suggest. Also, its “clutch” number – a number that measure how well a team performs in high-leverage situations – was -1.44, the worst in baseball during that time.
Those struggles started before this now infamous 14-game run of blah. In its 17 games entering Wednesday – only five of those were wins – the offense had a .201 average, hit .221 with runners in scoring position and had scored two runs of fewer eight times.
The positive, though: Despite being the worst team in the league the last two weeks, the Dodgers go into Thursday’s day off just 1.5 games behind the first-place San Francisco Giants and a game behind the second-place San Diego Padres.
“We’ve got to expect some of these things to turn for us,” Buehler said. “I think we have the people in this clubhouse to get the big hit or make the big pitch. It is what it is at this point.”
That this team is still two games over .500 shows how dominant they were in the season’s infancy. They were also much healthier then, and they still had what seemed like a surplus of starting pitching, which has since evaporated, punctuated by losing budding star Dustin May to Tommy John surgery.
“The bottom line is a lot of the little things across the board, we're just not finishing, executing the way we're capable of,” manager Dave Roberts said. “It sounds like I'm on repeat, but we need to do a better job of them.”
The Dodgers will get their chance to right themselves after a needed off day Thursday.
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