Hi friends-
Thank you to everyone who renewed their subscriptions to the Long Game this week!
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I apologize there wasn’t a newsletter on Tuesday. I’ve been super sick with the flu and I’m only now able to sit upright at my desk. Canelo has benefited from three straight days at doggie day care while I’ve tried to sleep this bug off and the streets are saying he hopes I get sick again soon so he can go play with his friends every day. :0
SPEAKING of sleeping, the Los Angeles Dodgers are now just 2.5 games ahead of the Padres in the NL West and 3.5 games up on the Diamondbacks. San Diego also just won their season series with LA for the first time since Barack Obama’s first term, so the Dodgers are technically only 1.5 games up because they would lose the division on the head-to-head tiebreaker.
The Dodgers have played .500 ball this summer while San Diego and Arizona are surging. But there are valid reasons LA has been mediocre lately:
The Dodgers have dealt with more injuries than any team in baseball, including the Atlanta Braves, who would not make the playoffs if the season ended today. Many of these injuries have been of the standard “Pitching Arm Fell Off” variety. Tony Gonsolin, Bobby Miller, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Walker Buehler, Kyle Hurt, and Emmett Sheehan all fall into that group—though there is hope that some of those guys (especially Yamamoto, who cost $325 million) will pitch again this season.
Many of the club’s other injuries have been of the Truly Cursed variety. Dustin May had almost worked his way back from major arm surgery when he tore his esophagus eating a meal. Mookie Betts has missed months after taking a fastball off his hand. Max Muncy somehow suffered the worst oblique strain in modern history and has been out since May. Brusdar Graterol made his season debut this week, recorded exactly one out, then tore his hamstring so thoroughly he sobbed as he was carried off the field.
Then of course there’s Freddie Freeman, who was away from the team for nine days while his three-year-old son Maximus lay in a pediatric ICU with full body paralysis after developing Guillain-Barre syndrome from an infection he caught during All-Star Week festivities.
Max Freeman is expected to make a full recovery, but he will need to re-learn how to sit up, walk, and use his arms and legs. I have no idea how Freddie Freeman is able to function right now, except that playing baseball probably provides normalcy for him and his family and helps everyone feel like everything will be OK. (I trust that if Max needs his daddy to stay home then Freddie will not play another inning this season, nor should he.)
Anyway, it’s possible that Max’s recovery (and Freddie’s subsequent return to the lineup) is a harbinger of good things to come for this team. Betts is scheduled to be activated on Monday for the Dodgers series against the Brewers. Muncy is headed out on a rehab assignment this weekend. Tommy Edman—who the Dodgers acquired from the Cardinals at the deadline to play center field—is also nearing a return from wrist and ankle issues. Buehler might be back in the rotation next week. Yamamoto is now throwing off a mound, and says he expects to pitch again this year.
The Dodgers have been treading water in June, July, and August waiting for the cavalry to return. It looks like that help will be back next week. I’m not hitting the panic button on 2024 yet. But if they still stink in two weeks after Betts, Muncy, Buehler, Edman, etc. are all back in the fold, then they’ve got a huge problem.
It might seem unfair—especially with the expanded wild card throwing chaos into the playoffs— but spending $1.2 billion in the offseason and not at least making the World Series would be an abject failure. And if the front office defense of crashing out early for the fourth season in a row is “welp, all our pitchers got hurt again,” then they will need to do some real soul searching on their drafting and development strategies, as well as trading for an ace like Tyler Glasnow, who has never stayed healthy for a full season in his life.
Yes, it’s only August 9. And yes, winning the division is now almost pointless due to the wild card expansion. But that doesn’t change the fact that the Dodgers are sleepwalking right now and plenty of teams chasing them in the standings are not.
They’ve gotta take two of three from Pittsburgh starting tonight, and that will not be easy with Paul Skenes on the bump for the Buccos tomorrow.
We’ll see if they can turn it around. I do not think the Padres or DBacks will go quietly like in years past.
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AROUND THE LEAGUE:
Mike Trout tore his meniscus again and is out for the season. As Bill Shaikin of the LA Times notes: Trout has played in just 41 second-half games combined over the last four seasons due to injuries.
Blake Snell finally completed eight innings in the big leagues. He finished the ninth, too, just for fun, and tossed a no-hitter. (NBC Sports Bay Area)
The White Sox snapped their losing streak at 21 games.
MLB executive and former player Billy Bean passed away at 60 this week of cancer. He did so much to make the game we love more inclusive to LBGTQ+ players and fans and will be sorely missed.
Jackson Holliday became the youngest player in American League history to homer in three straight games. (Steve Melewski / MASN)
SPEAKING OF JACKSONS, for the first time ever, there are more players with the first name Jackson than the last name Jackson in the big leagues (5-3). (Baseball Reference)
The Braves are on the outside of the playoff hunt looking in for the first time since June 10, 2022. (Anthony DiComo/ MLB)
Grady Sizemore was earning $15 an hour as an intern for the DBacks last year. Now he’s managing the White Sox. (Ken Rosenthal / The Athletic)
OTHER SPORTS NEWS:
US Olympians are taking advantage of free health care in the Olympic village to get teeth cleanings and pap smears. (Stephanie Apstein / Sports Illustrated)
First in medals, last in health care, I guess!
That’s all for this week! I’ll see you guys in the Friday night chat tonight starting at 7 pm ET/4 PM PT.
An entire column about the Dodgers and ZERO rants about shortstop?! 😁
A couple of words!
First, on Freddie. I'm no psychologist and I don't even play one on TV. But I remember Vin doing an interview with the LA Times just before his 45th year, which was 1994. They asked him something personal, which he hated: He had just lost his oldest son, and he had had to announce Big D's death on the air. He said that going into the ballpark was the way for him to put things out of his mind for a while and do his job. Now, that said, I remember a day where he was calling almost every player Michael (that was his son), and there was a night in Denver where I don't think he saw the field clearly; the next night, whatever had happened, he called the first inning, including a home run, while going through the lyrics of "The Good People of Denver" from "The Unsinkable Molly Brown," and I knew he was back. Well, for Freddie, this may be the place to be able to put things out of his mind.
Now to the injuries. Why so many? Have the Dodgers stopped to think that there are two possibilities:
1. They are doing something wrong in terms of training and conditioning?
2. They should stop going to other teams' garage sales and buying scrap?