The revolving door on the pitcher’s mound continues to spin for the Dodgers, who called Justin Wrobleski up from the minors to start Friday’s game against the St. Louis Cardinals.
There’s a good chance Wrobleski will be on his way back to the minors by the start of Saturday’s game.
In between he pitched six innings in a 5-0 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals, the Dodgers’ fourth loss in six games and their 11th loss in 20 games dating to May 16.
“I wouldn’t say, a problem,” manager Dave Roberts, who has used 13 different starting pitchers through 64 games, said of the revolving door. “It’s certainly not ideal.”
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Nor is it unusual for the Dodgers, who used 17 starters and 40 pitchers overall last season when they won the World Series. But that door is certainly spinning faster than it did last year with the Dodgers using 11 different starters before May 1.
The Dodgers’ bullpen leads the majors in innings pitched while their starters have thrown the second-fewest innings because of injuries.
The Dodgers have 15 pitchers on the injured list, among them Blake Snell, Roki Sasaki and Tyler Glasnow. Including bonuses, the Dodgers will pay the three pitchers more than $100 million combined this season. So far, that has bought them 15 starts.
In their absence, Wrobleski, Landon Knack and Jack Dreyer have made a combined 12 starts; none of them will make more than $800,000.
And it’s not just pitchers: The Dodgers have made 18 transactions in June and the month is just a week old, creating a constant shuffle between the majors and triple-A Oklahoma City that could disrupt Dodgers’ locker room chemistry.
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Roberts, however, said he’s not worried.
“It’s part of the culture nowadays in the major leagues, as far as kind of having optionable players and kind of having guys in and out of clubhouses,” he said. ”For our particular club, the core is still the core. But certainly on the periphery or the ancillary players that kind of go up and down, they’re kind of in and out, which is not easy for them.”
To combat that, Roberts said his coaches try to make sure the players feel comfortable during their stays, which can sometimes last less than 24 hours.
“It’s still not easy when you’re here for a couple days and then you’re out, then you’re back,” Roberts said.
Wrobleski (1-2), who made his second start of the season, agreed.
“Obviously, it’s a challenge,” he said. “But at the end of the day, I kind of know how this works and I know that my next start is not guaranteed to always be in one place or another. I wouldn’t say it’s an excuse. I haven’t pitched great up here.
“It’s definitely hard. But at the end of the day, you have to be ready to pitch whenever you’re called upon, no matter where you’re at. That’s kind of my mentality and wherever I’m at, I’m just going to continue to try to get better and continue improving.”
In a game delayed 77 minutes by rain, Wrobleski was undone by a pair of two-out pitches. The first was hit into the left-field stands by Pedro Pages for a two-run home run in the second inning. Brendan Donovan lined the other up the middle in the fifth to score two runners, both of whom reached on walks.
Willson Contreras accounted for the final run with an eighth-inning solo homer off reliever Chris Stratton.
But if injuries have crippled the Dodgers’ pitching, the offense simply crumbled Friday. They stranded nine runners, were one for 13 with runners in scoring position and struck out nine times. So while they lead the majors in runs, batting average and homer runs, they’re hitting just .228 in June.
All of which makes the absence of infielder Hyeseong Kim from the starting lineup all the more baffling. Kim, who is hitting .404/.436/.558 in 24 games, has just seven at-bats in June.
“I wish every time somebody got on base, we could get a hit and score,” said Mookie Betts, who had three of the Dodgers’ 10 hits. “I really wish every time runners are in scoring position, we could get those timely hits. But that’s not how the game works.
“The game is going to go through its ebbs and flows. You have to just kind of ride the wave. You can’t jump off.”
But you can’t get stuck in a revolving door either.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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