Dodgers Interview: Treinen at a Loss for Words after Another Gutpunch Loss
LOS ANGELES — In the quiet after another loss, Blake Treinen didn’t hide. He stood there and worked through the ninth-inning meltdown that turned a comeback into a 9–6 defeat, explaining pitch choices, acknowledging command, and—yes—talking about what keeps him steady when the game tilts sideways.
On the decision tree in the ninth, Treinen emphasized the plan was sound even if the result was not. “We try to make good pitches. Like I said, it’s not from a lack of effort. And you know, in that situation, you have an open base. So, why give a guy who’s a good contact guy a chance to, you know, go out there competing.” The Dodgers did put a runner on to set up options, and Treinen tried to execute down and in. “So, from, you know, a certain standpoint, you might say that, you know, command was terrible. Was it great? No. But I’m trying to challenge these guys and try to execute pitches and um Marawn got the one down and in good swing, not a great location, but not terrible. Um so yeah, outside I don’t really know.”
If the pitch location and the outcome left everyone sick, Treinen didn’t deflect. He framed it the way veterans often do: process over panic. There was an open base, there was a scouting report, there was a miss not by feet, but by inches—and in September, inches are everything. Dodger Stadium has seen two weeks’ worth of those inches missing on the wrong side.
Asked what he hangs onto during stretches like this, Treinen didn’t hesitate. “It’s always Jesus Christ. I mean, I you pinch yourself and things in life shake you up a bit. It can be life. It can be baseball. And I mean, the only thing that’s certain for me is that Jesus is on the throne. I got another day. I got a family that loves me. I got teammates that are for me. I got an organization that believes in me just as much as I believe in them.” That perspective didn’t minimize the sting; it situated it. Baseball is supposed to be the hardest game. Nights like this are proof.
He also made it clear he understands the temperature in the room and in the stands. “Again I know it’s hard and like fans and and people in the baseball world are frustrated. Like I get it. Trust me. Like it doesn’t hurt anybody more than us right now. Like this is not fun. But we’re really good at being resilient. And I know it’s been a long season, but you have to understand what this team does year in and year out, and we’re winners, and we’re going to find a way to get that done.” That’s not empty bravado; it’s the muscle memory of a clubhouse that’s lived atop the division for a decade.
Could there be carryover from last October’s workload? Treinen wouldn’t go there. “Um, I don’t know. Baseball, I mean, it’s what you sign up for. You can try to find reasons and make excuses. um you really try to find the tangible uh answers and you don’t try to lean on the the whatifs and the may and this could be and that couldn’t be.” He kept returning to accountability. “The end of the day, we’re professionals, you know, they they hire us to do a job and um not perfect all the time. Sometimes we’re just not great and we miss it a little bit and uh and in other cases, you know, like we guys got they’re throwing really well and then just in a random spot like they hit a hiccup, you know, and it’s just the timing of it has not been great, you know, myself included, like on multiple occasions now.”
That timing—great starts undermined by one crooked inning—has been the theme. Treinen knows it. “You know, I had have a good run of some pretty good like momentum from from a standpoint of blessing the team with some clean innings and run to a tough patch. other guys have stre straight uh stretches where they’re doing really well and they run into a tough patch but it’s all lined up at a time that becomes a little bit frustrating you know.” Put differently: the bad breaks and bad pitches have synchronized, and that convergence is why these losses feel heavier.
What he wanted to underline, though, was the togetherness in a bullpen that has heard every outside critique and still shows up shoulder-to-shoulder. “At the end of the day like we’re still a unit like all of us in here are still pulling the same end of the rope and it’s it’s frustrating and you can see it on our faces but the the confidence and knowing that we know how to win like that that’s not gone I don’t see that from anything our guys it’s hard it’s hard to to lose games like this and it weighs on you know.” He finished the thought by rejecting the carryover narrative: “so so just I mean I don’t know if there’s any carryover back. I don’t believe in that. Um we just we just have a job to do. It’s just been it’s been weird.”
Weird is one word for it. Painful is another. But if you’re looking for where the bullpen’s head is at after another late-inning shock, Treinen’s postgame told the story: own the pitch, trust the plan, lean on faith, and keep pulling the rope. The Dodgers need results, not rhetoric—and Treinen knows that as well as anyone. Tonight he gave the quotes. Tomorrow, he’ll try to give the zeros.
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