The Los Angeles Dodgers enter the 2018 season as overwhelming favorites to win their sixth consecutive National League West division title, with odds additionally favoring them to participate in the NL Championship Series for the third year in a row.
The club fell one win short of capturing a World Series championship last season, but return the majority of their core that includes the likes of three-time Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw and back-to-back Rookie of the Year winners in Corey Seager and Cody Bellinger.
Like recent seasons, the Dodgers will face a heavy dose of divisional foes in the early going. Of the club’s initial 36 games, 28 of them will be against the Arizona Diamondbacks, San Diego Padres and San Francisco Giants.
While Los Angeles will be without the services of Justin Turner for the foreseeable future, the three aforementioned NL West teams have seen key players lost to injuries in recent days as well.
For the Diamondbacks, their lineup took a hit with the news that Steven Souza Jr. suffered a right pectoral strain in his shoulder after diving for a ball in a Cactus League game last week.
Souza is expected to miss an extended amount of time, though a timetable hasn’t been given on when he could return to action. What’s definite, however, is that Arizona will begin the season without one of their better power bats in the middle of the lineup.
After losing 2017 midseason acquisition J.D. Martinez to the Boston Red Sox in free agency, the Diamondbacks pivoted by trading for Souza, who was slated to fill his void offensively and in the outfield.
Last season, he batted .239/.351/.459 with 21 doubles, two triples and 30 home runs in 617 plate appearances as a member of the Tampa Bay Rays. Souza added 16 stolen bases on the base paths, graded positively as a defender and accumulated 4.2 WAR (Baseball-Reference) for his overall play.
A right-handed hitter, the Diamondbacks were certainly counting on Souza to stymie the Dodgers’ left-handed heavy starting rotation that features Kershaw, Rich Hill, Alex Wood and Hyun-Jin Ryu.
He fared slightly better against the same handedness last season, but still hit .262/.388/.397 over 170 plate appearances when facing southpaws.
Meanwhile, the Padres are expecting to take the next step toward returning to respectability this season and boast one of the best farm systems in all of baseball. A number of prospects could potentially make an impact at the MLB level — adding further intrigue to the NL West race.
San Diego was also one of the more active teams during the offseason. They reacquired longtime third baseman Chase Headley from the New York Yankees and added Eric Hosmer to the fold on a lucrative contract.
The Padres’ starting rotation is still a work in progress, but it features plenty of youth and upside. They’ll be without the services of right-hander Dinelson Lamet, however, after he experienced elbow discomfort in his most recent Spring Training start.
While no structural damage was found, reports indicate Lamet won’t return to the mound until May at the earliest. As a rookie last season, he posted a 4.57 ERA, 4.37 FIP and 1.24 WHIP over 114.1 innings (21 starts) — nearly striking out 11 batters per nine.
Lamet struggled in his lone start against the Dodgers last season, but still limited right-handed batters to an abysmal .155/.241/.296 batting line on the year.
While the Padres aren’t expected to challenge Los Angeles at the top of the division, it goes without saying that losing their ace for the early portion of the year won’t help them stay competitive against the class of the NL West.
Perhaps no team in the division will be more negatively impacted by injuries than the Giants, who lost a pair of frontline-caliber starting pitchers in Madison Bumgarner and Jeff Samardzija on back-to-back days.
Bumgarner, who missed the majority of the 2017 season because injuries sustained in a dirt bike accident, will begin this season on the disabled list after fracturing his left pinky in his last Cactus League start.
The left-hander was penciled in to face Kershaw on Opening Day at Dodger Stadium, but fellow southpaw Ty Blach will now take his place.
Samardzija, meanwhile, will miss most of April after suffering a strained pectoral in a recent Spring Training outing. He was the Giants’ most reliable starter last season, logging an NL-best 207.2 innings pitched while only walking 32 batters all year.
San Francisco doubled down on an aging roster this offseason, trading for the likes of Evan Longoria and Andrew McCutchen to anchor the middle of their lineup.
While both of those players serve as improvements, early injuries to their starting rotation may prove costly in their early scheduled bouts against the Dodgers.
