What started out as a standout season is beginning to unravel in ominous fashion.
Both for the rookie pitcher Gavin’s Stoneand the rest of his team, which is in a bad situation and is understaffed. Dodgers equipment.
In a 6-5 loss to the lowly Oakland Athletics on Friday, Stone allowed five runs in four-plus innings while the lineup was silent between a two-run homer in the first inning by Teoscar Hernandez and a three-run homer in the ninth by Shohei Ohtani.
The result: the Dodgers’ sixth loss in their last eight games, and their 14th in 24 games since July 3.
“The guys we have out there are doing the best they can,” manager Dave Roberts said. “But I still feel like we have to get better. We have to find a way to move on.”
Stone, especially.
Five weeks ago, Stone’s season peaked with a shutout of the Chicago White Sox that lowered his ERA to 2.73 and vaulted him up the National League Rookie of the Year rankings.
Since then, however, some of the issues that plagued Stone’s brief 2023 debut (when he posted a 9.00 ERA in eight starts) have begun to resurface.
“I’m not executing well in certain counts, in certain situations,” Stone said repeatedly after his exit. “I feel good about all my pitches. I’m just not executing well in certain situations.”
Over his past five starts, the right-hander has failed to minimize the damage, allowing 39 hits and seven homers. His ability to induce swings has disappeared, with just 17 strikeouts over his past 22 ⅔ innings. More importantly, he has allowed four or more runs in four of those past five outings, giving him a 7.15 ERA over that span and a 3.63 ERA overall this year.
Read more: Dodgers need Gavin Stone to bounce back from slump that helped seal loss to Astros
Friday’s troubles began in the fourth inning, when Stone allowed a pair of solo homers to Shea Langeliers (on a changeup at the plate) and Seth Brown (on a full-count high fastball).
Then in the fifth, Stone failed to record an out, walking an inning-opening inning before allowing run-scoring extra-base hits down the first-base line to Miguel Andujar and JJ Bleday that ended his night.
The runner he left behind also scored, after reliever Joe Kelly allowed a two-run homer to his leadoff batter, Brent Rooker.
“He’s been our most consistent starter as far as getting the ball, giving us length,” Roberts said of Stone, who is now 9-5 this season. “But I think if you look back from that start (in Chicago), that’s not what he was doing in the first few months of the season.”
The reasons for Stone’s downfall have remained unclear.
There has been no obvious decline in the right-hander’s stuff (his fastball ticked up a bit to 95.6 mph on Friday). There were no mechanical issues he could point to, either.
However, the 25-year-old simply isn’t getting outs as efficiently as he was earlier this season.
The Dodgers can only hope this doesn’t mean their Cinderella story turns into a late-season pumpkin.
“I don’t know if it’s fatigue, but it very well could be,” Roberts said of Stone, whose 111 innings this year are just 10 shy of his previous career high (when he was a minor leaguer in 2022).
“That’s no excuse,” Stone said when asked about his increasing workload. “It’s just execution, literally.”
Stone’s woes are among many currently plaguing the Dodgers, who hold just a four-game lead in the NL West over the Arizona Diamondbacks (and a 4 ½-game lead over the third-place San Diego Padres) after holding a nine-game lead in late June.
Read more: Clayton Kershaw struggles as Padres sweep Dodgers, close gap in NL West
The lineup still has Mookie Betts, Max Muncy, Miguel Rojas, Chris Taylor and newly acquired Tommy Edman on the injured list, though all but Taylor are scheduled to play in a simulated game next week.
Freddie Freeman also remains away from the team. family emergency checklistRoberts said Friday he doesn’t expect Freeman to rejoin the club this weekend, but noted the first baseman has remained active and hitting since leaving the team last week.
“When you have a good team, the only question is whether everyone can stay healthy,” Hernandez said. “Obviously, we’ve had a lot of injuries lately. But like I said, we just have to keep trying to make it happen.”
However, even healthy Dodgers players have gone missing too often.
Will Smith is two of his last 30 games off and is hitting just .175 with 39 strikeouts since June 13.
“He’s just missing pitches in the hitting zone,” Roberts said before the game. “When you get pitches that hit you and you don’t finish the at-bat, you get some strikeouts. That’s just the way it is.”
Ohtani had a 15-at-bat hitless streak that culminated with a bases-loaded groundout that ended the inning in the seventh inning Friday before his ninth-inning homer that proved too little, too late.
“To be honest, I haven’t felt great at bat the last few games,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. “The at-bat before that home run, if I could have contributed a little bit more, I don’t think we would have been in that situation the next inning.”
And while the deadline acquisitions of Kevin Kiermaier and Amed Rosario were activated Friday, the bottom of the lineup remains woefully thin. In their loss to the A’s, each of the Dodgers’ No. 4-8 hitters came into the game batting .206 or worse this season.
“I think some players that are playing now, that are playing pretty much every day, maybe they are a little bit exposed,” Roberts said. “You can’t protect certain players, because our depth is certainly limited.”
Still, the current crisis on offense, which should be somewhat corrected once Betts and Freeman return to the team, pales in comparison to the broader uncertainties facing the Dodgers on the mound.
Tyler Glasnow He hasn’t looked like himself since returning from a back injury. Clayton Kershaw was tagged for seven runs on Wednesday night in San Diego. Yoshinobu Yamamoto He is still out with a shoulder injury (he is scheduled to throw his first bullpen session since being injured on Saturday).
The Dodgers are optimistic that Deadline centerpiece Jack Flaherty He will provide a boost, starting with his debut for the team on Saturday.
But Stone’s slump has undermined any further stability in the starting rotation, which has the second-worst ERA (5.88) and fewest total innings (127) in the majors since Stone’s shutout on June 26.
“Sometimes you get into a rough patch and we’re going through one right now,” Hernandez said. “You just have to keep trying and take it in a positive way.”
Injury Updates
Of all the players scheduled to participate in next week’s simulated game, which takes place Thursday, Muncy’s inclusion was the biggest surprise.
After missing the past two and a half months with an oblique strain, the slugger finally turned a corner in his recovery last week. The fact that he’ll soon be facing live pitching again represents another “big step” in his rehabilitation, Roberts said, though his timetable for rejoining the team remains unclear.
Read more: Hernandez: Mookie Betts back soon from injury, but where do the Dodgers play him?
Roberts also said Edman, who was signed at the trade deadline and has yet to play in the majors this year because of his high ankle sprain and offseason wrist surgery, will go on a minor league rehab assignment after the simulated game. He will begin playing on the field again for the first time this year.
On the mound, Walker Buehler (who allowed four runs in fewer than four innings Thursday night with Triple-A Oklahoma City) is expected to make one more rehab outing next week, then rejoin the Dodgers’ rotation after that.
Miller was retired in AAA
Pitcher Bobby Miller was scratched from his scheduled start Friday with Triple-A Oklahoma City after experiencing adductor tightness in a bullpen session this week.
The team made the decision to be “overly cautious,” according to a person with knowledge of the situation who was not authorized to speak publicly. Roberts was unsure when Miller, who missed two months earlier this year with a shoulder injury before being demoted to Triple-A before the All-Star break, would pitch again.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
