The Dodgers are hard to watch right now. They had not had a four-game losing streak all season long as of this time last week: Now, they have two of them after dropping Monday’s game 13-0. They were 21 games up on the Diamondbacks on Aug. 25. After losing to the D-Backs on Monday, Los Angeles has seen that lead drop to 12.5 games. That last number is the important part: Even as the Dodgers endure the worst play of their season, they are still 12.5 games up on their closest competition, with just 25 games to go on the season.
The Dodgers losing barely means anything
Tuesday’s Say Hey, Baseball looks at the Dodgers’ recent slide, J.D. Martinez’s four-homer game, and more Mets injury news.
Photo by Jennifer Stewart/Getty Images
The Dodgers are losing, but they don’t suck at this whole baseball thing. They already have 92 wins, more than they did last year when they won the NL West and the NLDS. They have 92 wins despite being without Clayton Kershaw for a considerable portion of the season, despite injuries and ineffectiveness from major players like Adrian Gonzalez. Their run differential sits at just +189, a figure only one other team in baseball (the Indians, +181) are close to. The losing is mostly ruining their chance to tie or set the all-time record for wins in a season — that’s unfortunate if you like history or the Dodgers, but it’s unimportant to their ultimate goal of winning the World Series.
Listen, we know it’s tough to catch up on everything happening in the baseball world each morning. Trying to find all of it while on your way to work or sitting at your desk just isn’t easy. It’s OK, though. Subscribe to our daily MLB newsletter and let us do the heavy lifting for you each morning to find the things you need to see.
If the Dodgers keep losing throughout September, then there is something to worry about here with regard to how they’ll fare in October. A poor 10-day stretch in a season that is 18 times longer than that is nothing to get worked up about; however, especially not when the Dodgers already built up what is likely all the cushion they could possibly need for the rest of the regular season.
Could the Dodgers continue to falter and blow this whole season, one in which they were once on pace to at least tie the 2001 Mariners for the greatest regular season record in history? Sure, it’s possible: The 2011 Red Sox looked unbeatable until they were very beatable, as have plenty of other teams in history that spent their Septembers undoing all of their previous good work.
To pick on those Red Sox again, though, they had clear flaws that were exacerbated in the season’s final month, and they didn’t have a lead like this. These Dodgers would be a better team than that one even if they went winless for the rest of September, and since we’re not going to see that happen, well, we can probably all just relax.
October will be here soon enough, and the Dodgers will be partaking in it. Take solace in that while they figure out how to end what will inevitably be a forgettable skid regardless of what their 2017 fate entails.
- J.D. Martinez became just the 18th player ever — and the first D-Back — with a four-homer game. Yes, that’s right: Four-homer games are rarer than perfect games.
- The Yankees say they won’t pursue Masahiro Tanaka if he opts out, and Pinstripe Alley thinks that’s just fine.
- J.P. Crawford has been called up to the Phillies, and the future of Philadelphia is now.
- Trevor Bauer and Avisail Garcia got into an argument about pitches and the rules of the game.
- Jake Arrieta exited the Cubs game early on Monday with a leg injury.
- Outfielder Leonys Martin ended up being an emergency pitcher in that game for the Cubs, and he threw heat.
- This Nick Williams slide just needs to be watched.
- Mikie Mahtook is having himself a terrible week so far, as he first knocked a homer into the stands, and then on Monday, Alex Gordon robbed him of his own.
- Jayson Werth gave this fan what his sign asked for.
- Remember when Jurickson Profar was a can’t-miss prospect and someone the Rangers wouldn’t part with in a trade for anything less than a huge return? Well, now they aren’t calling him up in September.
- David Wright will have rotator cuff surgery, officially ending his attempts at returning to the field in 2017.
- You would think the incessant injuries and losing season would make the Mets cautious in these final weeks, but no. They’re going to let Matt Harvey pitch on short rest on Wednesday despite just coming off the DL and getting wrecked this weekend.
See More:
