Dodgers Week 12: Coping with loss

The Dodgers gutted through a break-even week, but more importantly lost Corey Seager to a hamstring injury.

The team was 3-3 on the week, rebounding from a usual Anaheim siesta by taking three of four games from the Cubs, providing another strong showing against a potential postseason opponent.

Only once this season have the Dodgers had a losing week (LA was 1-6 from Apr. 8-14), and this last week was just the second .500 week for the club. As is usually the case, a 3-3 record feels even worse when two of the three losses were thanks to late blown leads by the bullpen.

Monday provided the first of two Joe Kelly giveaways during the week, when five weeks of pitching in the lowest-leverage situations possible ended suddenly in a flash. Thrust into a tie game in the eighth inning against the Angels, Kelly got creative in taking the loss, allowing two runs without a ball leaving the infield. One ball was put in play, to go with three walks and two wild pitches (that was really three wild pitches, but one rebounded so abruptly off the backstop that the runners couldn’t even advance).

The Dodgers had a bobblehead night on Thursday for Kelly, an unfortunate turn of events in what was scheduled far in advance and meant to celebrate the team’s lone free agent pitching addition of the offseason but instead left fans holding a totem representative of the team’s biggest weakness.

Even Kenley Jansen wasn’t immune, though he recorded saves on Friday and Sunday he allowed a two-run home run in between, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory on Saturday. Monday and Saturday were the only two games during the week that the bullpen gave up any runs at all, but the damage was done.

The biggest loss was Seager, who suffered a hamstring strain on Tuesday in Anaheim. The shortstop was rounding back into All-Star form, hitting .315/.382/.559 in 34 games since May 1, but will now miss a month or so.

Chris Taylor will get the bulk of the playing time boost, taking over at shortstop, and last week got off to a reasonable start on his increased load, going 5-for-19 while hitting .263/.364/.368 and scoring the winning run on Sunday night. But Taylor is hitting .223/.294/.391 with an 81 wRC+ on the season, a glaring reminder that the Dodgers need Seager back in the worst way.

Even though the Dodgers only broke even last week, it only cost them a half-game off their divisional lead, still holding steady up 10½ games on both Colorado and Arizona.

Batter of the week

Cody Bellinger regained his home run stroke, smashing three long balls with a 1.280 OPS, and also stole the Dodgers’ only base of the week.

Honorable mention goes to David Freese, who was 5-for-9 with two home runs because that’s what he does now; and to Max Muncy, who followed up last Sunday’s shenanigans with three more home runs, five walks, six RBI, and this T-shirt during batting practice:

Pitcher of the week

Walker Buehler was wonderful on Saturday night, pitching seven scoreless innings and left with a 1-0 lead for his second straight start. Since the beginning of May, Buehler has a 1.87 ERA in eight starts, including allowing one total run in 22 innings so far in June.

Hyun-jin Ryu gets honorable mention for being typically great, allowing only three runs in 13 innings in his two starts for the week, just one of those runs earned. Ryu’s ERA on the season is an unreal 1.26.

Week 12 results

3-3 record
22 runs scored (3.67 per game)
20 runs allowed (3.33 per game)
.543 pythagorean record

Season to date

48-24 record
371 runs scored (5.15 per game)
260 runs allowed (3.61 per game)
.657 pythagorean record (47-25)

Miscellany

Streak ends, part one: Hyun-jin Ryu had the audacity to allow a run on Monday in Anaheim, with his six-inning start causing his ERA to swell from 1.35 to 1.36. The second-inning run against the Angels ended a scoreless streak of 19⅔ innings for Ryu, which was his second long scoreless run in a six-week span.

Streak ends, part two: Kenta Maeda got bombarded with a five-run first inning on Tuesday, and though he was able to keep the Angels off the board for the remainder of his start, his pitch count soared enough to end his night after just 4⅓ innings. It ended a string of 32 consecutive games in which the Dodgers starting pitcher completed at least five innings, and just the 10th time all year an LA starter failed to go five. During the 32-start streak — from May 5 to June 10 — Dodgers starters posted a 1.95 ERA, averaging 6.64 innings per start. The Dodgers were 23-9 during that stretch, with the starters owning a 21-3 won-loss record.

Streak ends, part three: Getting swept in a brief two-game set in Anaheim gave the Dodgers their first series loss since dropping two of three games in San Francisco from Apr. 29 to May 1. The Dodgers were 9-0-2 in series in between, winning 25 of 33 games.

Haven’t seen that before: Kenley Jansen on Friday pulled off an intentional balk. For reals.

Transactions

Tuesday: Scott Alexander was placed on the 10-day injured list with left forearm inflammation, and Caleb Ferguson was recalled from Triple-A. Ferguson’s trip to Oklahoma City had the desired effect, with the left-hander retiring 14 of his 16 batters faced with 10 strikeouts in the minors, cleaning up the mess that saw him allow three runs in back-to-back relief outings with the Dodgers before his demotion. Upon his return to LA, Ferguson was in attack mode, striking out three of seven batters faced in his first appearance back in the majors.

Thursday: Corey Seager went on the IL with a strained left hamstring, with Matt Beaty activated from the injured list.

Game results

• Monday: Angels 5, Dodgers 3
• Tuesday: Angels 5, Dodgers 3
• Thursday: Dodgers 7, Cubs 3
• Friday: Dodgers 5, Cubs 3
• Saturday: Cubs 2, Dodgers 1
• Sunday: Dodgers 3, Cubs 2

Stats

Previous weeks in review: Week 1 | Week 2 | Week 3 | Week 4 | Week 5 | Week 6 | Week 7 | Week 8 | Week 9 | Week 10 | Week 11

The week ahead

The Dodgers stay home and get back into divisional play, running the Jeff Reed gauntlet by hosting the Giants and Rockies for seven games.