One of the Los Angeles Dodgers biggest strengths down the stretch of the 2017 season was their bullpen, led by All-Star closer Kenley Jansen.
They lost a couple key contributors this past offseason in Brandon Morrow and Tony Watson though, and Jansen and the other returning relievers have not performed as well as they did a season ago.
The bullpen had another poor performance in Monday night’s 8-5 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks, giving up four runs in the final four innings of the game, making it awfully tough on the offense to make any sort of comeback.
While Dodgers manager Dave Roberts knows that his bullpen unit is struggling, he believes that they will be able to right the ship, via SportsNet LA:
“We’ll get untracked, the ‘pen will get untracked. It’s one thing where you’re trying to keep the game close and keep these guys at bay, and you see the guys on the offensive side continuing to battle and chip away. … And yeah, when you get into the sixth, seventh and eighth inning you want to throw up some zeroes to keep the game close. We’ll start doing that.”
Through the first month of the season, the Dodgers bullpen ranks 21st out of 30 teams with a 4.69 ERA. Their .756 on-base plus slugging percentage against ranks 23rd.
Instead of re-signing Morrow or Watson or spending money on another bullpen piece in the free-agent market, the Dodgers front office decided to stick with mostly in-house options.
The acquisitions they did make, like trading for Scott Alexander and signing Tom Koehler, have not worked out yet. Alexander struggled and is currently back at Triple-A Oklahoma City and Koehler has yet to throw a pitch after suffering a shoulder injury during Spring Training.
As it currently stands, Roberts doesn’t have any reliable options coming out of the bullpen, which makes it difficult to win games. Something will have to change if the Dodgers want to return to the postseason in 2018.
