CHICAGO — When the Los Angeles Dodgers stumbled into Chicago this week as losers of three of their last four games and lugging a losing record into Wrigley Field, several of their top executives came with them — including baseball operations president Andrew Friedman and CEO Stan Kasten.
“What, you guys starting to worry enough that the whole front office needs to make the trip,” one media wag joked when the execs filed into the clubhouse a few hours before Thursday’s series opener.
Actually, Chicago is the home of managing partner Mark Walter, and it’s not uncommon for Kasten and Friedman to make the Chicago trip.
But that losing record is.
And as early as it is in the season, it doesn’t look like a fluke.
Which has made it a topic of much hand-wringing around the Chavez Ravine area, if not a cause for concern.
“I don’t go too deep into that,” manager Dave Roberts said. “The one thing that we do a pretty good job of is staying on the idea of winning a ballgame today.
“Yeah, we’ve tapped into depth that you wouldn’t want to tap into — for various reasons — at this point in the year,” he added, “and we’re not playing our best baseball.”
Tapped into depth?
Quiet offseason for Dodgers
Because of efforts to reset its luxury-tax liabilities — and, many speculate, to gear up for a Shohei Ohtani pursuit — the team that won 111 games last year did little during the offseason to cover for key injuries carried over from last year and free agency losses that included $625 million worth of All-Star shortstops in Corey Seager and Trea Turner the last two winters.
Because of a season-ending knee injury this spring to compromise backfill shortstop Gavin Lux and a more recent hamstring injury to his replacement, Miguel Rojas, it was former waiver claim Luke Williams starting at short Thursday.
By the end of the game, superstar outfielder Mookie Betts, who arrived at the ballpark from paternity leave during game, took over at short for his first big-league appearance there.
In between, back-filling fifth starter Michael Grove left the game in the fourth because of a groin injury — and joined the Los Angeles Dodgers’ bloated injured list the next day.
“They’ve got a bunch of good talent over there still,” said ex-Dodgers MVP Cody Bellinger, who clubbed a tying home run for the Cubs before Grove’s departure (during what has looked over the past week like a personal vendetta against the team that released him over the winter).
“They’re still a pretty solid team.”
In fact, rookie outfielder James Outman’s first career grand slam in the ninth inning lifted the Dodgers to a 6-2 win and back to .500 — with their best pitcher this year, Julio Urias, on tap for Game 2 of the four-game series.
And then the Dodgers didn’t produce a base runner against Cubs left-hander Drew Smyly until a 25-foot, broken-bat single in the eighth on Friday — at which point they already trailed 13-0, which would be the final score.
And just like that, on April 21, the Los Angeles Dodgers were under .500, again, later in the season than any year since 2018.
“I think there’s concern anytime you don’t play well,” said longtime ace Clayton Kershaw, who starts Sunday’s series finale. “Obviously, the expectation here is to win, and this year’s no different. So not playing the way we want to, there’s always concern with that. But nothing to do but keep playing and try to figure it out.”
The fact the San Diego Padres have also started slow has helped the Dodgers cause. But the fact the Arizona Diamondbacks are much improved this year — and playing well enough to designated Madison Bumgarner for assignment — has not.
The DBacks have won five of eight meetings with the Dodgers in the early going.
The role money plays in roster decisions
Some of the performance step-back might have been anticipated with the financial decision to reset for the first time since that 2018-19 offseason, a move made more difficult when an arbitrator ruled for Trevor Bauer in December and reinstated him from his (unpaid) domestic violence suspension, putting the team back on the hook for his $22.5 million salary this year.
They ultimately released Bauer, who’s playing this year in Japan. But the payroll liability for his salary hamstrung the Dodgers’ ability to make bigger moves than they did and stick to their plan.
“We’ve been here before, and we’ve just got to keep going and believe in each other, and I think that we’ll be fine,” Roberts said.
In fact, that 2018 team was 30-31 on June 6 and then won 62 of their final 101 games to win the division — eventually playing in the World Series.
They came back after the winter reset to win 106 games in 2019, then traded for Betts and signed him to a mega-extension in 2020 and won the World Series in that pandemic season.
They spent big on Bauer and Freddie Freeman the last two years and (even without much from Bauer) won 106 and 111 games the last two years.
But this year’s team looks a lot more flawed, a lot more vulnerable to the other top teams in the league — many of whom are improved.
After Betts, Freeman and maybe Outman, the rest of the lineup falls off quickly, albeit some early injuries contributing a small part of that lack of quality deeper in the lineup.
The infield defense is significantly compromised, the rotation hobbled and the bullpen among the National League’s four worst.
“It’s just been kind of all over the place,” Freeman said after a recent loss.
They’re 6-10 since winning five of their first seven this season — and needed a two-out, two-run, bottom-of-the-ninth pinch hit to prevent a sweep by the Cubs at Dodger Stadium to make the 6-10 stretch look that good.
“Freddie said it best,” Kershaw said. “I just feel like we’re not clicking at the same time. There’s spurts of good pitching; there’s spurts of good hitting; and right now it’s just not really synced up on a consistent basis as a team. So we’ve just got to all figure it out at the same time.”
Maybe all the smart guys from the front office can help before they get out of Chicago Sunday night. Maybe Tony Gonsolin (ankle) can come back early after just one minor league rehab start to give the team a boost in Grove’s spot.
What they say they’re not doing is waiting for Ohtani, or waiting till next year — not after 10 straight years in the playoffs that included nine first-place finishes and three World Series appearances.
Whether they can find help at the trade deadline, if they rally to put themselves into buyer position, might be their best chance.
“I think our guys have always shown the willingness to help us when needed,” Roberts said when asked about the deadline. “But the guys that we have now and that are coming [back from injuries] — it’s still a talented group.
“We’ve just got to find ways to piece some wins together, which has been hard to do so far.”
Gordon Wittenmyer covers Major League Baseball for Sportsnaut. You can follow him on Twitter at @GDubCub.