Los Angeles Dodgers’ new-look pitching staff off to slow start
By Tim Haberin
For Los Angeles Dodgers General Manager Farhan Zaidi, the mandate before the trade deadline was clear: bolster the team’s pitching staff outside of Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke. The former Cy Young winners’ heroics, marathon scoreless streaks and all, have been well-publicized this season, but the performance of the rest of the rotation was leaving much to be desired. The bullpen was also having trouble forming a reliable bridge to closer Kenley Jansen.
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The Boys in Blue attempted to address those needs in one fell swoop by agreeing to a sprawling three-team trade with the Braves and Marlins. The Dodgers received starter Mat Latos from Miami in the deal, who had been on a roll since returning from a DL stint in mid-June. They also imported young starting pitcher Alex Wood from Atlanta along with veteran Bronson Arroyo, who is currently recovering from Tommy John surgery and may not pitch this year.
To solidify their middle relief options, the Dodgers netted relievers Jim Johnson and Luis Avilan in the transaction as well. When all was said and done, L.A. had brought in several few faces in an effort to strengthen each level of its pitching staff.
But were they the right new faces? The early returns have not exactly been promising.
Latos and Wood slotted right into the Dodgers rotation and have made four altogether uninspiring starts for their new club. Latos made his debut in Dodger blue on August 2 against the crosstown rival Angels and tossed six solid innings, allowing one earned run. His next outing was much more forgettable, as he was tagged for six runs (including two homers) in four frames opposite the Pirates. Latos has also managed to fan only one batter in his ten innings thus far wearing a Dodgers uniform.
The 24-year-old Wood has also failed to make a very good first impression, although with a few more seasons of team control the Dodgers are likely to be a bit more patient. He threw 6.1 innings against the Phillies on August 4, surrendering four earned runs (though he did strike out eight). His following start lasted just five frames as he let up three runs to Pittsburgh.
Overall, the two new Dodgers starters own a combined 5.91 ERA over their first 21.1 innings of work. It’s still early going, obviously, and there is ample time to get on the right track. L.A. has dropped four in a row, however, and its NL West lead over the Giants has narrowed to 2.5 games. They are asking a lot of Kershaw and Greinke to be nearly perfect each time they take the mound, and even they aren’t always infallible: Greinke allowed a season-high six earned runs in his last outing, for instance.
The Dodgers are also going to need their new rotation arms to go deeper into games to take some pressure off their suspect bullpen. During their four-game losing streak, L.A. starting pitchers have averaged only five frames per start. That has led to some ugly appearances from the bullpen, and newcomer Jim Johnson has been one of the most recent offenders.
Fans will remember Johnson’s eye-popping success as the Orioles’ closer when he saved a total of 101 games between 2012-2013. He has fallen on much harder times since then, being shuffled between Oakland, Detroit and Atlanta before winding up in Los Angeles. He has made four appearances for the Dodgers and been scored upon in each of them. In his most recent one against the Pirates, he was lit up for eight runs in just two-thirds of an inning, blowing a two-run lead and skyrocketing his ERA with the Dodgers to unfathomable heights (29.45, to be exact).
It may be a bit soon to overreact, but the warning signs that the Dodgers have been seeing for a while now are still there. Their sweep at the hands of the Pirates over the weekend exposed many of the same old weaknesses. As ESPN’s Buster Olney noted today, the disparity between the two main factions of their pitching staff is still considerable. If things don’t pick up soon, more fans in L.A. will surely start to wonder if the club should have thrown all its chips at Cole Hamels or David Price instead.
The pair of aces heading their rotation are fearsome to be sure, but the Dodgers will need to be more than just Kershaw and Greinke if they want to launch a deep postseason run.