Julio Urías had another poor outing as his season-long struggles continued while the Los Angeles Dodgers dropped their second consecutive game to the Atlanta Braves.
Urías allowed five runs on nine hits over five innings of work. He also allowed three home runs while striking out just four and walking two.
“Just bad,” Urías said through an interpreter. “Obviously tried to put all my effort on maximizing the outing, but just bad pitches and too many mistakes.”
Although Urías had a stretch of five starts allowing three runs or fewer from the end of July to the middle of August, he has now given up 11 runs over his last 11 innings with two bad outings. That’s also included giving up three home runs in two consecutive starts.
“Just looking at the videos, trying to make the adjustments,” Urías said about the subpar performances. “Trying to see what I’m doing well, trying to see what I’m doing bad and then just make the adjustments from watching the tape.”
Perhaps the most concerning aspect about Urías this season is his fastball velocity. On Friday, he averaged 91.9 mph on the four-seam heater, which is down almost one mph from a season average of 92.7 mph.
Urías has now seen his average velocity dip in three consecutive years, starting at 94.1 in 2021 before dropping to 93.1 in 2022. However, Urías is unconcerned about it.
“Some days it’s up, some days it’s down,” he said. “I’m just going to make my adjustments. I’m not really worried about the fastball, just making my adjustments in starts and in-between starts. So not really worried about that right now.”
Urías has only made one start this season with a fastball velocity averaging 94 mph, which came on May 7. Since the start of July, his average has been below 93 mph for all but one outing.
The southpaw doesn’t believe it’s affecting his other pitches, but the effectiveness of his other offerings have also dropped.
“Just try to focus on making the pitches, trying to hit my spots,” Urías said. “Obviously that’s where the frustration comes is in the bad results and what’s happening, but no, I don’t think it has anything to do with the other pitches.”
Dave Roberts shares concern over Julio Urías
Urías now has a 4.60 ERA this season to go along with a 1.16 WHIP over 117.1 innings pitched. “Yeah, I mean, I think that it’s not something that anyone expected,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.
“I don’t have an answer for it. A person that we expect consistency from. You thought that he had a little traction on throwing the baseball well, then the last couple haven’t been great. And so all we can do is reset and get ready for the next one.”
The Dodgers can afford to let Urías work through his issues in September, but they are going to need him to turn it around before the postseasons tarts.
“I think that even tonight, when you’re talking about being able to take down 15, 18 outs, it’s important,” Roberts said. “So he’s a guy that we count on to do that, he understands that. And the last couple just haven’t been ideal.
“Actually, the last one was good until it wasn’t. But I just think today, it just wasn’t right today from the outset. But yeah, I mean, we all know what Julio means to us.”
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