Steve Webb
LOS ANGELES, CA — Twenty games into the season, it’s hard to deny it: the Dodgers are off to a slow start. They’ve struggled out of the gate before during this latest run of playoff teams, and everything turned out just fine. The 2018 team started a miserable 16-26 and were ten games out of first place before turning on the afterburners in the second half and overtaking the Rockies to win the division in an epic game 163. That team made it all the way to the World Series before falling to the juggernaut that was the 2018 Red Sox.
So I’m not going to get worked up over an middling first twenty-five games. However, one thing is clear. Though folks have griped about the offense (and there is room for improvement there), the biggest problem that has plagued the Dodgers in the opening month is their bullpen.
Having 5 Pitchers on the IL doesn’t help
To be fair, the pen is a lot emptier than it should be: no Blake Treinen, no Daniel Hudson, no Alex Reyes, no Jimmy Nelson, no J.P. Feyereisen. That’s a pretty good bullpen right there with just Dodgers who are on the IL. So in a way, it’s a B+ team at best were trotting out there each night in the late innings. However, even with the personnel that the team does have, they should be getting better results than this.
Right now, the Dodgers rank 25th in baseball in bullpen ERA. Only the Phillies, Giants, White Sox, Royals, and A’s rank lower. So it should be no surprise that the Dodgers are hovering around .500. If you can’t close out games, you’re not going to win a lot of tight ones.
Grading the relievers
As of this writing, really only Shelby Miller has overperformed in regard to preseason expectations. He got lit up on one outing, but has been nails otherwise. That is the most pleasant surprise out there. Phil Bickford, too, seems to be on the verge of having a nice bounce-back year. He leads the pen in strikeouts with 13 and his ERA is right at 3.00. If those numbers can be sustained, that is all we will need out of Phil this year.
Caleb Ferguson has been the most reliable lefty out of the pen this year by far. His 2.16 ERA is second to Shelby Miller’s 1.80. Similarly, Brusdar Graterol has been pitching pretty well after a bit of a shaky start to the season. His ERA was at 6.75 after his first four appearances, but now it’s down to a workable 3.12. And, while Evan Phillips hasn’t been the unhittable version of himself that we saw in late 2021, he’s been overall fairly effective.
Three very big problems…
The problems this year really are all about three pitchers, all of whom the Dodgers were looking to for good things in 2023. First, Andre Jackson was pitching great in Spring Training and made his first Opening Day roster. He had a couple of good outings to start the year, but in the Chicago series at the Ravine, there was talk of his tipping pitches at the Cubs absolutely teed off on him. Right now his ERA is hovering around 8.00. That’s not going to get it done in the big leagues.
Second, one of my favorite guys from last season, Yency Almonte has been inconsistent at best in 2023. Like Jackson, his ERA is over 7.50. Compare that to 2022, when he went an amazing 1.02 over 33 appearances. Something’s not right with Yency at the moment. Hopefully, he can work with Mark Prior and fix what ails him.
Finally, the biggest disappointment of this month has to be the performance of Alex Vesia. The Dodgers leaned on this fiery lefty to get them out of a lot of jams last season, and he just hasn’t been himself in 2023. There is speculation that maybe the pitch clock has messed with Vesia’s preparation for the pitch. Vesia was famous for pumping himself up to give max effort to every pitch last season, and this year he just doesn’t have the time for any of that. The pitch clock waits for no man. So, Vesia’s going to have to figure out how to motivate himself internally within the limits of the timer, or he’s going to find himself consigned to mop-up duty in one-sided losses.
To Vesia’s credit, he did have a nice moment in Saturday’s win against the Cubs when, after getting totally squeezed by the ump on a walk to Cody Bellinger, he was able to get out of a one-out, men-on-second-and-third jam on a Patrick Wisdom popup and a strikeout of Seiya Suzuki. More of that please.
Conclusion
A big-league bullpen is often like Forrest Gump’s proverbial box of chocolates in that you never know what you’re going to get until you’re in actual game situations. And the Dodgers’ pen just hasn’t lived up to expectations this year. Hopefully, the calvary will arrive and we’ll have some fresh arms that can energize the relief pitching in the second half of the year, but until then, we go to war with the army we’ve got. One thing I do know. You’re not going to the World Series with a bullpen ERA of 5.00. You’re just not.
