The Los Angeles Dodgers have just 14 games left before the end of the 2024 regular season, and they are still fighting for the National League West crown.
Unlike in previous seasons when the Dodgers have runaway with the division, they currently sit just 3.5 games ahead of the San Diego Padres and five games ahead of the Arizona Diamondbacks. But in their last 10 games, L.A. has gone just 4-6, and in September alone, they’re 5-7.
While the Padres and Diamondbacks are showing up in the rearview mirror, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts is focused more on getting his club back on track, he said via Bill Plunkett of the Southern California News Group:
“I know that teams are looming. I’m more focused on how we can play better baseball,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “We still, what do they say – control your own destiny. We have to play better baseball. But those teams aren’t going away.”
One reason for the Dodgers’ recent struggles have been their pitching staff.
Over 105 innings in September, the pitching staff has combined to give them a 5.74 ERA, and only the Colorado Rockies have been worse over that time period. Their starters have been even worse with a 7.04 mark in 53.2 innings.
Both the lack of run prevention and lack of innings has been a burden on the club:
“We have to have better pitching. We do,” Roberts said. “You can’t cover five, six, seven innings a night. You’ve got to be able to chew up some outs.”
While the pitching has been bad, the defense has also had issues, which has contributed to the lack of effectiveness from the pitchers. They have made numerous mistakes all around, with even some of their best defenders, including Mookie Betts, Tommy Edman and Freddie Freeman making mistakes:
“I just think overall, you look at the last week, we haven’t played good defense and I think when you’re playing teams that are vying for postseason berths, you have to play clean baseball,” Roberts said. “We’re giving up too many bases because of the defense and today Teo — the baserunning changed the momentum a little bit in the first inning so that’s uncharacteristic.
“Things like that we have to clean up. We have to be better.”
When the Dodgers get back to playing quality defense, that should benefit their pitchers a ton. And they’re going to need that after losing Tyler Glasnow and Clayton Kershaw for the rest of the regular season, with the former also likely missing the postseason.
The Dodgers have a few key issues to address and fix, but they still remain as one of MLB’s most talented rosters.
Dodgers still highly favored in NL West race
Despite their struggles, the Dodgers still have an 89.9% chance to win the division, according to FanGraphs, and they are one of just five teams in MLB with 100% postseason odds.
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