LOS ANGELES — If it wasn’t already abundantly clear, Sunday’s eighth inning should have ended all debate: Blake Treinen can no longer be trusted in high leverage situations.
Full disclosure. I like Blake Treinen a lot. I like what he’s done for this team. His epic posting in October last year alone was enough to put him in the pantheon of Dodgers bullpen greats. I also like the fact that he’s his own dude, even if it gets him some grief from LA fans who do not necessarily share his politics or religious beliefs. I like all that stuff.
However, when it comes to pitching, the last month has been nothing short of a nightmare for the veteran righthander. In the last thirty days, he’s made 13 appearances, with a 1-5 record and a 7.84 ERA. And perhaps even more troubling, ten walks against 13 strikeouts, which has resulted in a ridiculously elevated 1.94 WHIP (Walks + Hits per Inning Pitched). That just won’t cut it on a championship team.
To be fair, it’s part of a bullpen-wide struggle. If you look at the veterans that the team has acquired of late, none of them are performing particularly well. Supposed closer Tanner Scott has a slightly better 7.27 ERA over the same period, Kirby Yates has 8.10. Michael Kopech has 6.75. The young Dodgers haven’t been faring much better. Justin Wrobleski, who has looked great at times, nevertheless sports a 5.68 ERA over the last 30 days. Ben Casparius, no longer with the big club, has a 5.40. Edgardo Henriquez has a 4.50. Only Alex Vesia, Anthony Banda, and Jack Dreyer have acquitted themselves well in the last month.
But the big issue, to me, is Treinen. He’s the one who’s built up a bank account of trust with Dave Roberts. The Dodgers skipper said as much on Sunday after Treinen gave up three runs in the pivotal eighth inning. “My trust in him is unwavering,” Doc said, “and I still feel very confident when I call to the bullpen and Blake comes in the game.”
Now maybe some of that is more for Treinen’s consumption than the fans’. Later in the same presser, he did say, “The way he’s thrown the ball matters; I’ve got to trust what I’m seeing and not solely a track record. We all need to see a couple good outings and, most importantly, I want to see confidence. To be quite honest, right now he’s not as confident—he’s not as confident in himself as I am in him. The main thing is we’ve got to get that confidence back.”
Problem is, not much has happened lately to get that confidence back. You could see that he took the Yamamoto no-hitter meltdown very hard, and nothing that has happened since then has been much good either. When the bullpen door opened on September 5 in Baltimore. His ERA for the season stood at a solid 2.84. Since that moment, he’s had three separate outings where he’s allowed an opponent to put up a crooked number, yesterday’s eighth inning disaster just being the latest example.
Another issue is age. At 37, Treinen is definitely in the twilight of his career. He’s just a couple months younger than Clayton Kershaw, who just announced his retirement. Granted his arm doesn’t have nearly the number of innings on it as Clayton’s, but time catches up to all ballplayers eventually. Daniel Hudson could see that last year, retiring as a World Series champ. Maybe Father Time has finally come knocking for Blake Treinen.
While Dave Roberts admitted that it was “unsettling” that his star reliever was pitching so poorly this close to October, he also felt that maybe the glare of the postseason lights might turn on his inner compete. “As you’re working through things mechanically, you’re looking at the stat line, but once you get to the postseason nothing else matters except competing and doing your job. I do think that Blake is a little caught up in the mechanic part of it.” He added that past October performance can trigger the right mindset: “Sometimes there is something that kind of triggers in your mind—the familiarity, the competition—and you get on a run and get hot. That’s what we’re expecting from Blake.”
I imagine most Dodger fans do not necessarily share that expectation at this point. But we do know this. Blake Treinen has been here before. And he’s got one week to find it again. Or this October could be a very short month indeed.
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