PHILADELPHIA – Dave Roberts didn’t hang his head.
The Dodgers manager also didn’t punch the air or show any other sign of frustration. As catcher Will Smith flew into the warning track in right field to seal the club’s fate Wednesday night, Roberts calmly gathered his laminated game notes from the dugout railing and walked past a group of players in towards the steps of the club.
For the second night in a row, the Dodgers fell to the MLB’s best Philadelphia Phillies, this time 4-3. The game was close, interesting, competitive and witnessed by yet another rowdy, sold-out crowd at Citizens Bank Park. Philadelphia pushed in enough runs in a haphazard fifth-inning rally that included a lost fly ball for good in the lights and a pair of crazy hits in the infield. Despite some well-hit balls, the Dodgers were unable to hit the comeback against a formidable bullpen.
The team predicted to win the National League lost to the team with the best record in baseball.
“Yeah, it was frustrating,” Roberts admitted to reporters after the game.
No regular season game or series should be considered conclusive. There is too much randomness, too much volatility over the course of a 162-game season for any three-game stretch to matter that much. Teams – especially playoff teams – change dramatically over the course of a season due to injuries or roster fluctuations or changes. A clash in July between quality teams is not a preview of October.
However, the Phillies’ two wins over the Dodgers this week in a matchup between World Series hopefuls carried enough weight for ESPN to turn the game into a broadcast spot. It’s impossible to watch the Dodgers play the Phillies and not think about the fall. These are two teams that don’t wait, but do hope to play baseball when the weather turns cold.
But on a disgustingly humid July night in Pennsylvania, only one team truly proved up to the task.
The reality is that the 2024 Los Angeles Dodgers, to this point in the season, have not been impressed. They entered the year with a star-studded cast and supersonic expectations. Shohei Ohtani represented the most significant free agent addition in MLB history. Payroll has reached bizarre levels. It was, once again, World Series or bust for the Dodgers. How it should be.
But now there is frustration. A flood of wounded frustrated this group. Mookie Betts, one of the five best players on the planet, remains sidelined with a broken hand. Max Muncy has not played since May 15 due to a debilitating oblique problem and is not expected to return.
The starting rotation is in even tougher trouble. Tyler Glasnow, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Walker Buehler, Tony Gonsolin, Clayton Kershaw, Emmett Sheehan, Dustin May and pitcher Shohei Ohtani are all on the injured list. The current starting quartet consists of veteran lefty James Paxton and three rookies: Gavin Stone, Landon Knack and Justin Wrobleski.
There is still ample runway for the Dodgers to iron out the wrinkles. This team will get better and healthier as the season progresses. Elite players will heal and return. Glasnow and Yamamoto will likely be in the playoff rotation. Kershaw may join them. Andrew Friedman will make additions on schedule. The 26 men who lost Wednesday in Philadelphia will not be the 26 men on the playoff roster.
When the dust settles, the Dodgers will win the NL West again. And the success or failure of this operation will come down to a short playoff series against a theoretically inferior team. Time, as always, will be the true arbiter.
But it’s an inescapable fact that this club — which had shortstop Miguel Rojas batting fifth on Wednesday — has real flaws. The lack of offensive power beyond Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Betts, Smith and Teoscar Hernández and the dearth of healthy, reliable pitchers are legitimate concerns that could sink this team.
They entered the season as the NL favorites, a potentially historic juggernaut. But at the halfway point, the 2024 Dodgers are just another good team. This series loss to Philadelphia was a sobering reminder that Los Angeles can no longer be considered National League class.
Whether this will make any difference in October remains to be seen.
