O Dodger has a starting pitching problem.
They may not want to admit it, they certainly dread the idea of broaching the subject, but on a sweltering Friday night at Dodger Stadium, there was no escaping it.
Facing the National League Central-leading Milwaukee Brewers in the opener of a marquee weekend series, they needed their ace to be their ace.
For the second consecutive match, Tyler Glasnow failed them.
With their rotation fractured by injuries and plagued by recent ineffectiveness, they needed his $136.5 million off-season acquisition to start answering uncomfortable questions about strength and durability.
For the third time in his last five games, there were only more questions.
None of that seemed to matter at the end of the night, the Dodgers using three home runs from incredibly unknown Will Smith and a dramatic two-run, two-hit eighth-inning single from Freddie Freeman steal one final victory 8-5 amid familiar postseason roars.
But those “Fred-die, Fred-die” chants?
For the Dodgers to overcome the hauntings of last October, in three months those cheers need to be: “Ty-ler, Ty-ler, Ty-ler.”
See more information: Will Smith hits three home runs as offense leads Dodgers past Brewers
They need Glasnow to be better. They need their entire rotation to be better. And barring that, they have just three weeks to improve, the July 30 trade deadline approaches, and the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman facing a task that for two years remained terribly unfinished.
The Dodgers need to make the only deal that can make the other $1.2 billion in deals worthwhile. They need to negotiate what escaped them through two collapses.
They still need to find one more starting pitcher they can trust to get the ball in October.
No more ignoring this. No more Lance Lynning. No more waiting for children to suddenly grow up or for injuries to miraculously heal.
As Friday night revealed once again, if Tyler Glasnow is the guy, they might need a second guy.
Fighting through hot, dead air and a pesky Brewers offense, Glasnow was an ace through five innings. The problem was he threw six.
Glasnow was nearly perfect in those five innings, allowing just one baserunner on error. The problem is that, in the middle of all this, he made a perfect mess.
Clinging to a two-run lead in the fourth inning, Glasnow suddenly lost control and went down hard, allowing five runs on a span of six batters.
His overall line will show just three hits allowed in six innings. But the way he fell apart while giving up those five runs was surprising and something that will see this team get beat in the playoffs.
It started with an infield single to Brice Turang, Glasnow’s first hit allowed. This seemed to shake him. He then accompanied William Contreras.
One out later, he gave up a 15-run single to right field off Willy Adames to ruin his shutout, and now he actually looked rushed and distracted, walking Garrett Mitchell to load the bases for Rhys Hoskins.
One pitch later, Glasnow hit a fastball up the middle and Hoskins hit it over the center field fence for a grand slam.
Glasnow settled in to throw two more hitless innings, but the damage was done, both to the game and to the perception that he can shoulder this heavy burden.
Starting pitching starts with him, and the Dodgers wonder: Will he be there to support them when needed?
He pitched 110 innings this season, just 10 shy of the most innings he pitched in any season in his nine-year career. He has never worked so hard, so consistently, so on schedule. He has never been healthier for this type of stretching. He’s basically never been here before.
And is this showing? You decide.
In his last two starts, he has allowed 10 runs in nine innings. In his last five starts, he has allowed 16 runs in 29 innings. His ERA rose from 2.53 at the start to 3.47 after Friday night.
“I thought Tyler was great all night outside of that inning where he gave up some eyeballs, the walks hurt us, and obviously Hoskins’ home run, but outside of that, he was good,” manager Dave Roberts said afterward. .
Roberts won’t be as forgiving if that happens in October. It took Smith being just the fourth Dodgers catcher in history to hit three homers in a game for the Dodgers to survive Glasnow, and chances are that sudden surge of energy won’t happen in October.
“I think the infield hitting, the walk… I think he started to get a little frustrated, a little quick,” Roberts acknowledged. “I don’t know if it was him losing control or just not making shots when he needed to.”
Either way, it will be difficult to overcome in the playoffs and, as Glasnow has certainly learned, nothing else matters here.
“Especially in that inning, the timing was a little weird and then it wasn’t executed, kind of falling behind, then it just got hot and he hit a good pipe,” Glasnow said.
Give him credit for calming down long enough to finish with two strong innings.
“I had no choice, I guess,” he said. “I just had to play.”
I admire that, but feel free to worry that in the playoffs he’ll be out of the game after giving up a five spot, with no chance of redemption, either for him or a rotation that recently did a good imitation of him.
In the Dodgers’ last seven games, their starting pitching has a 9.00 ERA, and all the Fred-dies in the world can’t fix that.
Glasnow drove in five runs in three innings against the San Francisco Giants. James Paxton was beaten for nine runs in four innings against the Giants. Gavin Stone allowed four runs in three innings against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Each of these three potential postseason starters recently came up empty, and a fourth Bobby Millerhas also been struggling lately, sending the wrong message at the wrong time.
And those are just the healthy ones.
The Dodgers also cannot count on injuries Yoshinobu Yamamotoinjured Clayton Kershawinjured Walker Buhler or injured Dustin May.
Do you know who they’re counting on for Sunday’s series finale? A prospect named Justin Wrobelski, who will make his major league debut after two starts in AAA.
See more information: Dodgers overcome Tyler Glasnow’s struggles with 11th-inning scoring spree vs. Giants
Which brings the question back to Glasnow. If he is right, everything behind him will seem right. But barring a negotiation, if he’s not working, nothing behind him will work.
Shohei Ohtani may be this team’s most valuable player, and Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts its most inspirational players, but make no mistake.
In this difficult time, Tyler Glasnow is the most important player.
Roberts acknowledged that they will watch their innings progress.
“We are monitoring this,” Roberts said. “I think more in the micro, in the sense of how he’s feeling, how he’s throwing the baseball, rebounding against a strong, fast game, there’s a certain amount of innings he can pitch this year. So I think that’s the approach we’re taking, but we certainly know he’s encroaching on that.”
However, before Friday’s game, when I asked Roberts if he held his breath for every Glasnow game, he adamantly said no.
“I don’t think there was anything for me up until the moment I was with him that made me hold my breath,” he said.
Better get started.
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This story originally appeared on Los Angeles Times.
