The Dodgers end April with a 16-11 record which is merely “OK”. The fact that they had a 13-2 start followed by a 3-9 stretch is what really bothers everyone. Fans are upset, but I guarantee you that the players are really pissed! During that 12 game stretch, the Dodgers are averaging 3.25 runs per game, after putting up an average of 5.8 runs a game in that 13-2 stretch! Clearly, you can bad mouth the bullpen all you want, especially if you are trying to obfuscate the fact that you are not going to win many games when you average 3.25 runs a game! The converse is also true. You are not going to lose many games when you score 5.8 runs a game!
Today, we turn the page on April and start a new month. The Dodgers have a clean slate. They are 16-11 and just about everyone would take that record, especially with knowing the following:
- That Cody Bellinger would only appear in 4 games;
- That Mookie Betts would hit .250 with 2 HR and 5 RBI;
- That super-utility man Zach McKinstry would spend half the month on the DL;
- That Justin Turner would be the only position player to exceed expectations;
- That David Price, the Bazooka, and Corey Knebel would be on the DL a substantial amount of the month; and
- That Joe Kelly had shoulder surgery in November to have a massive cyst removed from his shoulder (more about that later).
The State of the Bullpen
Overall, the Dodgers pitching is very good. Their ERA continues to be top 4 at 2.98 and they still lead in WHIP at 1.06. The starters are #5 in ERA and #1 in WHIP, while the relievers have dropped to #25 with a 3.70 ERA. Some of you don’t like to use ERA, but ERA currently says the Dodgers do not have a good bullpen. They are also #25 in WHIP, so both metrics declare the same result!
There are only three outcomes for this bullpen:
- They will get worse;
- They will get better; or
- They will stay the same.
Two out of three of those options are not good, but there substantial is reason for hope. Jimmy Nelson is back and looked very good even if Angel Hernandez pinched him on what should have been a strikeout. He just sucked it up and got out of the inning. Looking at Jimmy Nelson’s career numbers means nothing as he has been a starter, not a reliever. His stuff looks very good and his velocity is up to 95+. Tony Gonsolin is ramping back up and it sounds like he could be a week to ten days away.
Mitch White is turning some heads and will continue to be an option in the bullpen. He now has 6.2 IP in MLB with a 0.75 ERA. I think he stiff plays well at this level. Victor Gonzalez now has 28.1 IP under his belt witha 1.59 ERA and 0.95 WHIP. There’s a lot to like there, and Scott Alexander is a use piece with a 2.53 ERA and is a ground-ball machine. He is perfect for middle innings.
Blake Treinen continues to be solidly spectacular at times to above average at others, but it is pretty much the same as last year. His 3.18 ERA belies his 1.68 WHIP. That needs to improve! That brings me to Kenley Jansen, who has a 2.61 ERA and 1.06 WHIP. He has allowed 3 hits in 10.1 IP which is outstanding, and his 13 K’s are fine, but his 8 walks will not work. He has to cut down those walks and if he does, he can be very, very effective. On the back of his uniform, it should read: Handle With Care! Do not use him in extra innings and on back-to-back days. If he walks a batter, I would take him out of the game because that runner is getting to 2B with quickness. Can the Dodgers win with a closer that has to be handled so delicately? Yes, but it will be hard until some of the injured players comes back.
Remember that maybe, possibly, pretty please with sugar on it, Brandon Morrow could be in the mix. We have no idea how long David Price, the Bazooka, Corey Knebel, and Tommy Kahnle will be out or even if they will be a factor this season. That’s reality. The odds say that maybe one or two of those five guys could be role players, but we simply don’t know. It’s a wing and a prayer.
Dennis Santana and Garrett Cleavinger have shown a lot of promise recently, so with the best starting staff in baseball, the bullpen looks like this today:
- Cleavinger
- Alexander
- Gonzalez
- Nelson
- White
- Treinen
- Jansen
- Uceta (very short leash)
There is plenty to hope for and I expect to see growth from Nelson, White, Cleavinger and Gonzalez. But help is on the way in the form of Tony Gonsolin (maybe by next weekend) and maybe Machine Gun Kelly. Yes, I have called him that before, but now we find out that he had an excuse for his ineptitude!
Why did the Dodgers not Disclose Joe Kelly’s Injury?
I think I know the answer. All of Joe Kelly’s teammates love him. He is a guy you would go to war with… and he does not make excuses. Joe Kelly did not want to use his surgery as an excuse, but the fact of the matter is that the cyst has likely been a factor since he arrived in LA. It has evidently been growing in his shoulder until it became “massive.” In the offseason, doctors ultimately ended up putting in metal clamps on Kelly’s labrum in order to decompress the cysts. They also removed loose bodies from the rotator cuff. This was reported on Dodgers.com:
“My shoulder hasn’t been good since the end of 2019,” Kelly told WEEI. “After the thing with the Astros, my arm was super weak. If I was laying on a table I couldn’t lift my arm past gravity. They asked me how long it was going on for and I told them forever. I couldn’t sleep at night and it felt like fire ants were eating my arm from the inside out.”
The future of Joe Kelly this season may be bright:
“Joe is doing everything we’ve asked trying to get him back,” Roberts said. “He went back to back, he’ll throw an inning on Sunday and the command, the velocity, the breaking ball, changeup, all of that is there. Then soreness after outings is dissipating so he’s bouncing back. Hopefully, second week of May we’d love to have him back.”
So, maybe it turns out that all of Joe Kelly’s problems were caused by this cyst. Certainly, it was a factor and now we know why he kept throwing curveballs and stayed away from the fastball. How can you even try and pitch when it feels like “ants were eating my arm from the inside out?”
Quite often, things that don’t kill you, make you stronger. Could it be that Pop Gun Kelly comes back as Machine Gun Kelly and fulfills the promise Andrew Friedman had when he signed him to a three-year deal? It would be a nice story for a really great guy! I am not holding my breath, but the path is there… Maybe it was Hanley who injured Joe’s arm when he did this:
I have a feeling a mammoth breakout is coming. It is always the darkest right before the dawn.
Okay, I haven’t gone underground yet or taken up knitting.
Some current thoughts:
* Folks can pick on the bullpen and Doc’s lineups all they want (I occasionally do) but until we start hitting the baseball, its a waste of time.
* I saw good things from White and Aceta too.
* while it’s way too early for any valid statement, the balls don’t seem to carry. They seem dead to me. Maybe it’s cold weather, the pitching, whatever but I see balls that look barreled up that are dying at the warning track. Didn’t seem to effect Pollock’s ball. Seriously, I think it might be easy to compare exit velocity with fly ball distance, this year to last.
* Who needs a DH when you get to watch Aceta hit? He looks like he could go a full season and never hit a foul ball.
* Struggling Lux works a great at bat and has the bat taken out of his hands with yet another terrible strike call.
* I was forced to watch the Brewers broadcasters. God, are they bad. They made plenty of inaccurate statements about the Dodgers and had done little homework. I was pissed when they were blaming Smith for the stolen bases. Again, the pitchers can’t hold runners. On Nelson’s balk the play by play guy couldn’t figure out the offense. He finally says “oh it was the left knee that moved?” No shit. It was clear after the 1st replay. I used to teach that right-handers “balk-move” with a rabbit runner. With 2 man umpiring crews you can get by with i sometimest. With 4 man, never. As many of us were taught, for a safe lead, you watch the pitchers right heal. If that lifts, you’re back. It you want a jump, look at left heal (and knee). When it lifts or buckles, you’re gone.
We have to keep grinding. There’s no choice. It can’t get worse, can it?
Nomar was doing color last night subbing for Orel and he said he’d never seen that play called as a balk in his entire career. Of course it was Angel Hernandez who called it so no one is going to give him the benefit of the doubt. If you’re going to be the worst ump at calling balls and strikes most people will figure that probably carries over to balks as well.
Phil, am I understanding your comment correctly that you think it was a clear violation? So, if Nomar is correct and umps never call it that doesn’t mean it isn’t technically a balk, but that it just means the umps let pitchers get away with it?
STB – I thought it was clearly a balk. When that left knee or heel move the pitcher has to go home. I’ve seen pitchers buckle that knee and quickly jump pivot and pick to first, which is harder to detect but it’s still a balk. I didn’t hear Nomar but I’m very surprised he said that. Big league pitchers get away with a lot if it’s “part of their typical motion”. But the move last night was clearly done to deceive the runner and was clearly a balk.
Yes
Who are those guys? Well, I was told they are the best team and deepest team in baseball. For 11 or 12 games they were just that, for the next 14 or 15 games they have been one of the worsts teams in baseball, and hands down the least entertaining team in baseball. Some of the stat geeks have been quite content to say that is all okay because they were still in 1st place, hmmm things have changed. To ignore trends is to ignore reality, sometimes a trend is very telling about what is really going on and maybe some changes should be made to try and disrupt that trend. I don’t need a bunch of manipulated and parsed stats to know something is rotten in the frig, all I have to do is take a whiff. Can things improve, sure, but I am not convinced that a Bellinger return is the cure-all, I have been noticing for some time now that Belli is very streaky and has a swing that is very vulnerable over the long haul. I also have always realized and continue to realize that the bullpen is a problem, forget the stupid stats use your eyes and your nose.
Exactly. Something is definitely rotten in the fridge. And its mainly the bullpen. Specifically closers. I can’t remember a team going into so many 8th innings and beyond with a lead only to lose the lead and the game. If anyone is attempting to blame this extended slump on a couple of injuries, I’m not buying it.
I have been a critic of our bullpen, but I know that the lack of offense is responsible for our loses lately.
It’s good to hear that Gonsolin is on his way back. He’s effective against both sides of the plate, hopefully Doc uses him for multiple innings.
I think Bellinger and McKinstry are bigger than we think loses. I think we will see a big difference in our offense when both get back. I think both are huge for our offense. I think McKinstry should be a permanent starter at either 2B or LF, i’m worried about Lux and Pollock.
Concur on Lux and Pollock. Bellinger just has huge holes in his swing, that’s why he gets eaten alive by the better pitchers come post season. He gets a little healthier when he gets to the bullpen, but he is a can of SPAM against the better starters.
I know I hear you on Bellinger. Someone needs to tell him to stop swinging for the fences. If he cuts down on his swing I think he will be a better hitter. I could be wrong though.
Worried about Pollock and Lux, but think McKinstry should be a full time starter? Wow, if you can pick McKinstry over those two after just 21 career games, the Dodgers should let you run their scouting department. Butt Hurts could be your right hand man since he can smell the difference between a good a bad player. Let’s not forget that Pollock lead the team in Home Runs and lead in OPS against left handed hitters. Benjamin says Pollock finishes with a better OPS than McKinstry if you really believe this nonsense.
I’m not worried about this team. We have a lot of injuries and our two superstars at the top of the order aren’t playing well. Anyone notice that Pollock has a higher batting average than everyone on the active roster beside Turner and Kershaw? If you think things are gonna stay that way, I have some beach front property in Palm Desert I’d sell you on the cheap.
Worried about Pollock? Why the hell aren’t you worried about Muncy? Pollock is a career 264 hitter with a lot of injuries that held him down. Muncy is a healthy 235 career hitter. He’s Joc without the splits.
I used the word permanent when I shouldn’t have. What I meant to say was McKinstry should start at either 2B or LF consistently to find out what we have.
Well, you can take LF out of that equation until he proves that he’s clearly better than Pollock. As far as second base goes, Gavin was just fine until he hurt his wrist. His minor league numbers were better than ZMack and he was drafted 32 rounds earlier and remember that he’s a full 3 years younger.
So, maybe after Lux fails and needs to get sent back down, but then wouldn’t Taylor be more deserving?
Difference of opinion. I don’t put a lot of stock into last year stats since it was only 60 games. I’m more of an OPS guy than average guy. But if a guy like Muncy walks like crazy I would put him right in front of the pitcher in the eighth spot so the pitcher can bunt him over.
Bellinger just needs to ignore the advice and do what makes him a true superstar. He has a career .909 OPS . You don’t have many holes in your swing if you have a career OPS like that. Fans have short memories. They only remember what happened last. Any person who understands baseball knows how valuable Cody is at the bat, in the field, on the bases and in the dugout. He is Top 10… maybe 5! You can believe otherwise but you can’t argue with OPS
I can argue with OPS because that is a stat and my sense of smell is a more accurate measurement of performance than “a bunch of manipulated and parsed stats”.
I wonder how well a player would do in his arbitration hearing if they said, forget the stats, I smell like the best player ever. Pay me!
Name a player who has a .900 + OPS and is not a superstar.
BTW, I do not understand what you are trying to say.
Kolton Wong 😉 This year, right?
Will Smith?
I’m attempting Humor/Sarcasm in case you didn’t get it.
Will Smith has a career OPS of .919 although that is a sampling, that is still impressive.
Wong has a .721 OPS.
Career OPS
Dustin May. This is not good.
Sure looks like UCL
Talk about snakebite!
What is the status on Gonsolin? Haven’t heard him mentioned lately.
Probably by next weekend.
5th starter?
Gray. Now.
Good thing Gonsolin is due back pretty soon. Wonder if JoJo Gray would get the call up
He’s in the discussion!
I feel that they are hitting their mojo back.
Gonsolin, Price or Nelson in the rotation for May? White or Gray? Lot’s of options, but we’re getting thinner by the day. I’m wondering if Truth Hurt smelled the injury before it happened.
The next time I Seager dive for a ball this year will be the first time I see Seager dive for a ball this year.
After watching Lux windmill, I humbly suggest PLAYING TAYLOR EVERYDAY.
Ha , Lux out , Muncy over to 2nd.
Has anybody ever seen so many averages under .200?
Batting OPS is way down too.
Vespias fastball somehow looks faster than 94.
Pollocks arm looks like a wet noodle
Grandma didnt have an arm either but she was 1OO
Even Raley’s lousy throw the other day was better than that.
They did everything they could to lose this game players and manager finally they succeeded
Pollock’s arm reminded me of Juan Pierre. Mookie Betts is a great player, but the stolen base attempt was in a word “dumb”, especially given the fact that Corey Seaver was at bat and Justin Turner was on deck. But I don’t blame Mookie. It was MURPHY.
Can someone explain to me why Betts would be trying to steal second base with a runner at 3rd base with one out and who might score on a sac fly. Betts get thrown out and Seager K’s so perhaps a moot point but the bad baseball is evident.
The next time I see Seager dive for a ball it might be the first time we all see him dive for a ball as stated by BandP proved prophetic.
I thought the same thing about sending Betts in that situation. Made NO sense at all.
Seager’s defense and stolen bases allowed are becoming a problem.
Second time in a week Roberts runs out of position players and has the pitcher batting 5th in extra innings so they can pitch around Muncy. Bench coach has to help him stop doing this, we are struggling big time without adding to it. Many other things also hurt in this loss.
It’s hard to repeat. Boston finished 3rd and won 84 games the year after winning the Series and 108 regular season games in 2018. The Dodgers’ offense has stalled (8 hits in 11 innings tonight) and their bullpen just isn’t very good.
The season is long and they have time to turn things around but they have to start doing things differently.
Seager dosenot get nothing. the game must be finished with that rolling
Friedman traded Floro for Vesia just before the season started, saying they didn’t have room for Floro in the bullpen.
Someday Vesia may be a good MLB pitcher, and he is a great story coming from a division 2 school.
But Floro pitched in key spots in the playoffs last year, and deserved to be on the Dodgers this year. I didn’t like the move at the time, and felt Floro had pitched well for the Dodgers with an ERA of 2.59 last year and 3.2 in his career.
He currently has pitched in 14 games for the Marlins with an ERA of 1.42 and a WHIP of 0.79. The Dodgers could certainly use him right now. It not only seems like a bad trade for a World Series contender, but also shows a lack of loyalty to Floro. Sometimes the best moves are simply keeping the players that helped win the championship.
Omg hindsight much?
Definitely not hindsight
The Floro and Kolarek trades made no sense at the time, and even less now.
It was mentioned a number of times by a number of posters.
Gutted for May.
Missed both of the games. Right now I am more concerned with the injury to May. Hope it is just something minor. Will miss Sunday’s game also as I am in Milton-Freewater Oregon seeing my oldest for the first time in about 15 years and a grand daughter I have never met until this evening when they came over to the hotel we are staying at. Took the Coast Starlight up to Portland and picked up a rental car to drive here. Took about 3 1/2 hours. Train ride was nice. But I feel like my body is still moving to the rhythm of the train! We will be back in LA Tuesday night. Yeah Porpoiseboy, I live in Canon City. On the 50 about 35 miles from Pueblo. Been here for a little over 10 years now since I retired. Love it here, hate the Rocks announcers, especially Drew Goodman. He could put a corpse to sleep. And the Subaru strike zone is the most annoying thing in their broadcast, plus they are all notorious homers.
The game is ultimately forgettable, but May’s injury may not be.
But while we’re wondering about every decision Roberts makes, I’m wondering why he is so quick to yank relievers. We always hear about the importance of “pitch counts”… so why don’t pitch counts matter more in games like this one?
18. 19. 14. 10. 15. 11.
Those were the pitch counts, respectively, of Nelson, Alexander, Santana, Gonzales, Jansen, Treinen. Each threw 1.0 inning. And they all pitched effectively. (If it ain’t broke…)
Funny, but isn’t Nelson supposed to be a “long man”? He struck out two and gave up one hit in his 18 pitches.
Yes, sometimes you’ll want to pinch-hit for a pitcher, but doesn’t it seem that each of these guys could have been good for another inning? Why burn through your relief staff when you don’t have to?
I don’t get it.
Think about it on the positive side. We’re 16-12 a half game out of first place and tied with the Padres for second with everything that has gone wrong with bad defense,untimely hitting,bad baserunning and mounting injuries. Help is on the way sooner than later from our injured players. Mad Max also has to be taken out of the 4 hole when Bellinger returns. Lux has that same look on his face as last year when he goes to bat, a scared indecisive look. It might do him good to go AAA for some much needed at bats and confidence building. It’s a long season and nobody is going to run away with any division because of the affects of last year’s shortened season on pitchers and the mounting IL payers everyday. It’s no need to panic. AF will figure it out.
I feel bad for Lux, young kid playing in front of his hometown crowd and he looks lost at the plate.
Vesia had no business pitching a second inning, but he’s gonna be really good once he has some confidence.
Seager is horrible on defense right now. How is every freaking ball just inches from his glove and yet his uniform has no stains on it?
I agree about always winding up with the pitcher’s spot in the middle of the lineup. Doc’s signature unnecessary double-switching.
Dustin reported sharp pain in his upper forearm, sure sounds like TJ.
Damn I hope Julio has a gem for us today.
Doc always works himsel into no options. Then, he leaves vesia in to walk the bases loaded twice. Give the next guy a chance.
What a great decision to have a bullpen game the day before. I thought and said it was dumb then and it is dumb now.
As someone said you will have days off coming up. Doc u r a dumbass!!!! This shows up more and more when he has to manage. He inherited a great team and thus a great winning percentage. Anybody with half a managerial brain would succeed. In times like these where it requires a manager to make good decisions this is what you have.
I like Seager however more and more I don’t c the signing for what he will want. He can’t play defense he doesn’t run and his first pitch swinging stops a lot of rallies. He will not age well. We had to have a World Series but one Betts contract may be enough. Mookie is a great defender but not a great base stealer or offensive player.