It was like Orel Hershiser could hear what Dodger fans were screaming at their TV.
Because, as slumping closer Tanner Scott came trotting into a nightmare ninth inning in Baltimore on Saturday night, the club’s color analyst on SportsNet LA immediately tried to offer a rationalization for his entrance.
“You might be asking, why Tanner Scott tonight?” Hershiser said, moments after the SNLA broadcast showed a clip of the left-hander getting walked off the night before, and moments before he’d get walked off again on a bases-loaded single to end Saturday’s disastrous loss to the Orioles.
Well, Hershiser continued, “If the Dodgers are going to go deep into October, and go back-to-back as world champions, the people Dave Roberts is bringing in have to get it right.”
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An unsatisfying answer, perhaps. But one that reflects the precarious reality of the Dodgers’ bullpen situation — with the team feeling little choice but to rely on the high-profile relievers this year’s team was built around.
Granted, Saturday’s collapse epitomized just how difficult that faith has been to maintain.
It starts with Scott, the $72 million offseason signing who was supposed to cement the backend of the unit — not require an explanation from team broadcasters upon entering games in key situations.
It’s been compounded by inconsistencies elsewhere, from similarly scuffling offseason signing Kirby Yates; to Blake Treinen and the unreliable form he has shown since returning from an elbow injury, including a meltdown earlier in Saturday’s ninth inning that forced Scott into an unforgiving situation.
Injuries have also hampered the continuity of the bullpen time and again this season. Hard-throwing right-hander Michael Kopech has been limited to 10 appearances because of arm and knee troubles. Left-handed stalwart Alex Vesia has missed the last two weeks with an oblique strain (though he was set to be activated for this week’s homestand). The team’s only notable trade deadline reliever acquisition, Brock Stewart, made just four outings before going down with a shoulder injury. Evan Phillips is already out for the year with Tommy John surgery. It’s unclear if Brusdar Graterol will return from a shoulder procedure in time to pitch at all this year.
All of those names were supposed to make up the core of this year’s relief unit — the high-leverage pieces that the front office decided to invest in, and Roberts expected he’d be able to trust.
Instead, they’ve been the biggest culprits behind the bullpen’s 4.21 ERA on the season (which ranks 19th in the majors) and a spate of recent painful late-game losses that have kept the Dodgers mired in a two-month slump.
Moving forward, it has left Roberts and his club facing a difficult decision: Continue to trust that underperforming crop of supposed lockdown arms, or look for alternatives from less proven options elsewhere?
For now, the former appears to remain their preferred choice.
If the bullpen is to turn things around, they’ve decided, it will require their biggest names to simply start pitching better.
“These are the guys we signed off on, we believe in,” Roberts said Sunday. “Not to say that you’ve got to have blind faith forever. I understand that. But … I’m going to keep giving [opportunities] to them, until I don’t.”
Pitching coach Mark Prior echoed that same message, reiterating that “those are our guys, and we believe in them,” even as the team searches for late-season improvements.
“The results haven’t been there. It hasn’t been good,” Prior added. “[But we have to] move forward with the three weeks we have left in the season and get on a run. Things happen very fast in this game.”
Prior pointed to last season, when the Dodgers faced other — though much less alarming — bullpen questions leading up to the playoffs. At that time, they didn’t have a set closer in the ninth inning. Several key pieces were either hurt or scuffling in the second half.
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Treinen, in particular, was one of the bigger uncertainties, after missing two weeks in August with a hip injury that also doubled as a reset amid a midseason slump. Once he returned, however, the right-hander transformed into the Dodgers’ most trusted late-game option. “Next thing you know, he’s the MVP of our team in the playoffs,” Prior said.
The stability he provided also helped the rest of the bullpen, which effectively carried the Dodgers to their World Series title, flourish around him.
“If they see a guy having some success, things just snowball,” Prior said, describing how successes (and failures) can often feel contagious among a bullpen at large.
That’s the kind of dynamic the Dodgers are trying to rediscover again this year.
It’s why Scott (despite his 4.56 ERA and 12 combined blown saves and losing decisions) keeps getting late-game opportunities. And why Treinen (4.26 ERA), Yates (4.71 ERA) and other disappointments in the Dodgers’ beleaguered relief corps have been given continued leash to work to get back to the best version of themselves.
On paper, those are the most veteran, most experienced, and most trustworthy options on this year’s team. They have, as Roberts has repeatedly reiterated of late, the kind of “track record” the club is still willing to bet on. If just a couple of them can figure things out and get on a dominant run, more unit-wide success might follow in their wake.
“When you’re talking about winning 11 games in October, getting there [requires] guys that you can trust in that hot box of moments,” Roberts said.
“[This] is who we have, it’s not like that’s changing,” Prior added. “So we just gotta keep getting there.”
That doesn’t mean the team will endure more struggles forever. The clock is ticking on the Dodgers’ expected leverage group to finally find a way to realize their potential.
On Sunday morning, for example, Roberts said Scott could be shifted out of his ninth-inning role as he tries to iron out command problems that have led him to consistently miss down the middle. Later that day, the manager entrusted a late-game lead to three rookies in Edgardo Henriquez (who escaped a jam but had shaky command), Justin Wrobleski (who struck out five over two scoreless innings in one of his best outings this year) and Jack Dreyer (a steady left-hander this season who now has three saves to go along with his sub-3.00 ERA) to close out a skid-snapping win against the Orioles.
Come the playoffs, there could be another wild card. Two-way star Shohei Ohtani will likely be needed in the starting rotation, but Roberts acknowledged there have been “thoughts about” whether he could factor into some kind of potential ninth-inning role as well.
“I can’t answer that question right now,” Roberts said. “But I think that we’re going to do whatever we feel is the best chance to give us a chance to win. And I know Shohei would be open to whatever. We certainly haven’t made that decision yet, though.”
But before they get there, much will depend on the actual relievers they expected to be able to count on this season. For as ugly as the performances have been to this point, the Dodgers haven’t yet abandoned all hope for a turnaround.
“I live in a world of, what’s the alternative?” Roberts said. “I just don’t feel that Edgardo Henriquez, for example” — who has 17 career major-league innings — “is now the savior.”
“It’s not a knock on Edgardo, because he’s throwing the heck out of the baseball,” Roberts added. “But you look at our ‘pen, there’s a confidence thing right now that [other guys have] got to get over.”
Read more: Despite emergency help from Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers lose again: ‘Truly have no answers’
Over the final three weeks of the regular season, the Dodgers feel their best bet is banking on them to do just that.
“Look, it can turn really quick,” Prior said. “This game is so much about feeling confident … Getting, and being able to stack good outings or quality at-bats. When you’re able to start stacking those things, you feel good. And like anything, if you feel good, you feel better about your stuff. You have more confidence. You feel that you can get anybody out in any situation.”
The Dodgers’ top relievers, of course, appear to be a long way from that at the moment.
But “at the core of it,” Prior insisted, even after the frustrations of the bullpen’s continued failures, “we believe in who we have.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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