In a very bizarre season, the past week had to have been the most peculiar thus far. The Los Angeles Dodgers were off Monday and Friday, they played two extra-innings games and they lost twice due to a bullpen meltdown.
As it currently stands, the team’s lead on the National League West is down to just 2.5 games over the San Diego Padres. The same Padres who the Dodgers face for three games at Petco Park, beginning Monday.
Three Up
1) Last week is a bit light on positives, and it begins with a heavily qualified one for Gavin Lux. For someone who was slumping, the first game of the week could not have gone any better, as Lux went 3-for-5 with three runs, five RBI, a walk and two home runs —- including the one that ended up being the difference against the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 10th inning.
Unfortunately for Lux, it was a short-lived bit of encouragement. The rest of the week he went a combined 0-for-9 with four strikeouts, not even playing Thursday or Sunday.
2) For the non-qualified positives, we head to another youngster: Will Smith. Holy crap Will Smith.
He’s coming off a week that saw him go 8-for-15 with three doubles, two walks and just one strikeout. On the season Smith is now batting .303/.432/.618 with six doubles and six home runs in just 76 at-bats.
For the longest time, Smith was hitting the ball hard and getting unlucky, but it appears as if his luck is turning around at just the right time. “It feels good to see the average climbing up and numbers starting to creep up,” he said after Sunday’s win.
“I’ve just kind of stuck to my process the whole year, stuck to my approach. Really haven’t deviated or lost too many at-bats getting off my approach. I stuck with it and it’s nice to see a couple soft hits fall and those liners falling. It feels good.”
3) Now pitching. Julio Urias was very good, but not great on Saturday (6 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 4 BB, 3 K) — and yet, he has remained solid for the Dodgers despite the high walk number. On Sunday, the bullpen gave the Dodgers a dominant performance: 9 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 10 K —- including encouraging performances for Kenley Jansen, Caleb Ferguson and Alex Wood.
Three Down
1) There’s only one place to start, and it’s with Kenley Jansen. What is funny about Jansen is despite concerns for multiple years, this season the underlying metrics are actually really encouraging.
Even despite Saturday’s blow-up, he remains in the 100th percentile for exit velocity and hard-hit percentage, while finding himself in the 98th percentile for expected batting average and expected slugging.
And yet, when you watch Saturday’s nightmare, it seemed to confirm everything you feel when you watch Jansen pitch. There’s “The Kenley Jansen Experience” joke, but more often than not it’s accurate. Where we go from here could end up determining the fate of the Dodgers in the postseason.
2) From the bullpen to the rotation, there’s mounting reason for concern. Walker Buehler and Dustin May combined to pitch 3.2 innings this week across their two starts, with both leaving due to injury.
Buehler is back on the 10-day injured list due to blisters, while May is day-to-day after taking a line drive off of his foot. The hope is he will start Wednesday against the Padres.
While there are still a couple of weeks before playoff time, you’d like to go into that stretch with a clear understanding of where your staff is at —- and as the days go by it appears less and less likely that this will be the case for the Dodgers.
3) When do we get seriously concerned about Max Muncy? This week he finished 3-for-19, watching his batting average dip back below .200 (he’s at .195 heading into Monday). On the bright side: he walked five times on Tuesday and Wednesday.
On the flip side: Muncy struck out seven times across Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Of the eleven balls he put into play this week, just two of them classified as “hard-hit.” GULP.
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