Steve Webb
LOS ANGELES, CA — Labor Day is the unofficial end of summer. It’s also the time that baseball fans can make one final assessment of their team before the calendar turns to October and the postseason arrives. Needless to say, the Dodgers are in very good condition. But even the best teams have things they need to work on. Here’s our unofficial honey-do list for Andrew Friedman, Dave Roberts, and the rest of the Dodgers’ brain trust during the final 30 days of the regular season.
1. Keep your rotation healthy
We all know what happened last year. We tried to make it through the postseason on about 2.5 healthy arms. It didn’t end so well. From Max Scherzer and his “dead arm” to Walker Buehler putting up very un-Buehler like numbers in the postseason (4.91 ERA!), we saw what happens when you try to get through a playoff run without the proper horses to do it with.
This year should be different, but it’s not a lock. Julio Urias is still a rock at the front end, but after that, things are not so clear. Tony Gonsolin‘s been a revelation this year, but he’ll need to rehab that injury before he gets thrown into the fire of postseason play. Clayton Kershaw‘s only had one start since his return. Dustin May‘s been brilliant, but inconsistent so far. Tyler Anderson has been good all season, but do we want to put the fate of the franchise in his hands? And Andrew Heaney just doesn’t have enough innings under his belt to let me know exactly what we’ve got there.
In the playoffs, it might be that the Dodgers go with a three or four-man rotation. I’d like both Gonsolin and May to be in there from the right side. And that makes Kershaw and Urias your lefties. That leaves Anderson and Heaney as possible left-handed bullpen pieces. Which is good considering the only lefties the team has got out there right now are Alex Vesia, Caleb Ferguson, and David Price, and Price is on the IL. It wouldn’t hurt for Roberts to have a couple more lefty options out of the pen. Plus, I could see Anderson being given a start to give Kershaw a little more rest as the playoffs wear on.
2. Figure out the outfield
The infield for this team is pretty well set: Freeman, Lux, Turner, and some combination of Justin Turner and Max Muncy. The outfield, on the other hand, has been plagued by underperformances everywhere except right field. It’s critical that Bellinger, Taylor, Gallo, and Thompson all get plenty of at-bats during September, and Dave Roberts can just ride whoever has the hot hand in October. It’s not unthinkable that any of them might catch fire between now and then.
However, Roberts needs to be dispassionate about the whole thing. Maybe Cody Bellinger isn’t the guy this year. Does the team really lose that much defensively with Trayce Thompson in center? Something needs to be done to break up the pattern of giving away outs in the back half of the batting order. Roberts needs to let all them know, regardless of what you’ve done for the team in the past, nobody’s got a guaranteed spot out there right now (unless your name is Mookie Betts).
3. Who’s closing games?
A month ago, I would have said that there’s no way you let Craig Kimbrel anywhere near the 9th inning in a tight ballgame in the playoffs. Now, I’m not so sure. It seems like in the last couple of weeks, Kimbrel is getting a lot more consistent in his location, and he’s having better outings than before. We know what the guy is capable of. There are long stretches in his career in which he’s just been unhittable. Just last year, he had a 0.57 ERA with 20 saves before the All-Star break. Is that still in there somewhere? It seems like he might be on the cusp of something.
But if he isn’t, Doc has got to be ruthless. He needs to see if Treinen, or Phillips, or even May might not be a better option to close out games. Or, maybe this postseason, it’ll be closer by committee and depend completely on the match-ups that the teams will be facing.
4. Keep playing all 162 to win
Given the caveats that the health of the team is important, now is not the time to take the foot off the accelerator. There is only one game that you can win: the one you’re playing on that day. The Dodgers should continue to play hard even after they clinch the division, which will occur sometime next week, I suppose. Even after they clinch the #1 seed and homefield advantage.
There is nothing to be gained by complacency. Baseball players are creatures of habit. If they get out of their habits too long, they get rusty. There is already going to be nearly a week-long layoff from the final game until the beginning of the divisional round. That’s plenty of time to rest.
In the meantime, the team has got some ballgames to win.
