Dodgers looking beatable as problems stack up

Code red.

Five-alarm fire.

DEFCON 1.

Any term used to describe a crisis could be applied to the Dodgers right now, and that would be the case even if owner Mark Walter wasn’t under federal investigation.

Problems are stacking up, and with only a little more than a month remaining in the regular season, who knows if the Dodgers will be able to solve them before the start of the playoffs.

The Dodgers have offensive problems. They have defensive problems. They have bullpen problems. And in the wake of losing their first two games of their three-game series against the Atlanta Braves, they could soon have postseason bracket problems.

The concerns have become pronounced enough to where manager Dave Roberts has started to back off his recent tough-love approach, probably because maintaining that demeanor under these circumstances would create an overly negative atmosphere. 

“We had opportunities,” Roberts told reports at Truist Park following his team’s 6-5 loss on Wednesday.

The offense is stuck in neutral, the broken hand suffered last week by center fielder Andy Pages complicating the team’s efforts to emerge from an extended slump.

In Pages and catcher Will Smith, the Dodgers are missing two premium hitters who play premium defensive positions. Pages has been replaced by Alek Thomas and Will Smith by Hunter Feduccia and Ben Rortvedt, and at both positions, the substitutes represent major offensive downgrades.

Smith is on a minor-league rehabilitation assignment and should have about a month of major league game time to develop a rhythm in the batter’s box for the postseason. Pages won’t have any such luxury, as he could miss the remainder of the regular season.

Pages, 25, and Smith, 31, are particularly valuable to these Dodgers because some of their more experienced players are in obvious decline. Mookie Betts remains up and down, Freddie Freeman hasn’t homered since Independence Day, and Teoscar Hernández has basically been a Mendoza Line hitter for the last two months. Newcomer Kyle Tucker has just stunk.

In their last 30 games, the Dodgers have won a game by more than two runs only three times. They have scored an average of 4.2 runs per game in their last 39 games, down from 5.3 runs per game in their first 94 games of the season.

The effects of the diminished offense has been magnified by the team’s defensive shortcomings, which started becoming especially noticeable in the week leading up to the All-Star break. With Hernández in left field and Tucker in right, the Dodgers have two below-average defenders in their outfield. A defensive mistake by Hernández in the fourth inning on Wednesday turned the Dodgers’ 3-2 lead into a 4-3 deficit.

The Dodgers have played clean defense before, and they should be able to do so again. But will they be able to close out games?

When imploding $69-million closer Edwin Diaz was placed on the 15-day injured list last week, the Dodgers looked as if they would be able to manage the situation. They had other options. When Diaz was sidelined earlier in the season, Tanner Scott performed well in his place. The Dodgers also had a safety net in Roki Sasaki, the starting pitcher who was their primary ninth-inning pitcher in the playoffs last year.

So much for that.

Scott was the losing pitcher in each of the Dodgers’ first two games in this series against the Braves, reverting to the form from his disastrous first season with the team last year. As for Sasaki, he will be placed on the injured list with a ruptured blister on the middle finger of his pitching hand. 

Considering their variety of issues, it’s little wonder why the Dodgers have lost 13 of their last 15 games against teams with winning records. The only series the Dodgers won this month were against teams with sub-.500 records – the Kansas City Royals, Colorado Rockies and Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Braves are now within two games of the Dodgers for the No. 2 seed in the NL. Only the top two seeds in each league will receive a first-round bye in the playoffs.

Regardless of whether the Dodgers can hold off the Braves, they will show up in October with a fighting chance.

The reason: Their starting pitching.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tarik Skubal, Blake Snell and either Shohei Ohtani or Tyler Glasnow will make up a postseason rotation that could be historically dominant.

If they don’t pitch up to that standard, the season could end with another emergency signal: Code blue.

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