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Swanson: Dodgers need starting pitching reinforcements, and soon

July 31, 2023

LOS ANGELES — As far as showcases go, Sunday’s was one exemplary effort.

Truly, a fine microcosm of how dire things could be for the National League West’s leading team, of how off-kilter a season it’s been.

The Dodgers have the fifth-best record in all of baseball, four of the best hitters in the game, and an earned-run average in July of a whopping 6.18 – which, yes, is “a big number,” manager Dave Roberts acknowledged after Sunday’s 9-0 loss to the Cincinnati Reds.

Sunday’s lopsided loss came without three of the Dodgers’ four star hitters and with one of their three rookie starters on the mound. And it served a well-timed reminder – as if the members of the front office needed one with the MLB trade deadline bearing down Tuesday – of just how precarious an edge their ball club is tiptoeing along.

Help would help. Some reliable starting pitching could help stoke some postseason hope.

Maybe that’s a big name like the New York Mets’ Justin Verlander, even though he will make $43.3 million next season when he’ll be 41. The veteran right-hander is a proven playoff performer and he’s still dealing: In a 5-2 victory over Washington on Sunday, he recorded his 250th career win, throwing 103 pitches and allowed just one earned run in 5.1 innings Sunday, lowering his ERA to 1.49 over his past seven starts.

Or maybe the Dodgers trade for a guy like St. Louis Cardinals’ right-hander Jack Flaherty, who has a 4.43 ERA, 1.55 WHIP and 106 strikeouts in 109.2 innings – and who, like all of the Dodgers’ other acquisitions in the past few days, will be a free agent after the season, when they’ll want to be as unburdened as possible in their pursuit of Shohei Ohtani in free agency.

“You can always have room to improve on the starting pitching,” Roberts said, toeing the line without pleading outright for starting reinforcements. “So we’re gonna go with what we have, until we have more – when and if we do.”

But potential acquisitions seem to be flying off the board, including Sunday, when there came reports that the Cardinals sent Jordan Hicks to the Blue Jays and Jordan Montgomery to the Rangers.

So, even though the Dodgers already have made trades to bring in right-handed starter Lance Lynn (he’ll bring his 6.47 ERA into his first start with the club Tuesday) and shortstop Amed Rosario, and to bring back reliever Joe Kelly and utilityman Kiké Hernandez, Roberts found himself issuing an obligatory caveat Sunday: “It takes two teams to make a deal happen.”

It’s possible, then, the Dodgers will choose to live dangerously. To keep MacGyvering together victories with duct tape, bubble gum and Max Muncy’s moon shots in support of their sizzling quartet of Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts, Will Smith and J.D. Martinez.

After all, the Dodgers – now 59-45 after losing five of their past seven games – have the third-best OPS in baseball (.785). That’s because Freeman is hitting .329 with a .984 OPS and Betts has a .943 OPS and 27 home runs; because Smith has a .862 OPS and J.D. Martinez has an .872 OPS and 25 home runs.

But they have the 22nd-worst ERA (4.51). That’s because Clayton Kershaw has been on the injured list, Dustin May is out for the year and Julio Urias and Tony Gonsolin also have been on the IL or disappointed otherwise, while a trio of rookies have been shoring up the starting rotation.

And because of outings like Michael Grove’s on Sunday, when the overmatched rookie was made to sit in the mess of his own making and wear it, tattooed painfully before he exited having allowed eight earned runs on 10 hits in six innings.

The calvary wasn’t available: Betts got another game off to rest his sore right ankle, and Martinez was pulled before his first at-bat, with what Roberts described as an unknown injury affecting his groin area, back and hips. Then Smith went out after his left elbow was hit by a pitch in the first inning.

Without them, Freddie Freeman – he went 2 for 3 and recorded his team-leading 13th stolen base – couldn’t rescue the Dodgers on his own.

Smith said after the game that he expects to feel well enough to play in the Dodgers’ next game Tuesday, just hours after the 3 p.m. PT trade deadline. He also tried to be diplomatic when he was asked about that: “Help is always good, I guess?” he said. “Our starters are better than what they’ve probably shown, I guess?”

Starting pitching reinforcements will take a lot of the guesswork out of it: Great hitting + dependable pitching = an even better baseball team.

That could mean getting back Kershaw, and maybe also Walker Buehler, after his second Tommy John surgery? And it could mean nabbing another dependable arm before the buzzer on the trade market. The clock is ticking on that, and possibly, on the Dodgers’ fortunes this strange season.

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Swanson: Dodgers need starting pitching reinforcements, and soon

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