That series in Arlington wasn’t a complete disaster thanks to that come-from-behind victory on Sunday, but the Mariners were pretty thoroughly outplayed by the Rangers over the last four games. That puts Seattle in a really tough position. The team clearly isn’t good enough as constructed — they’re also supposedly a buyer ahead of the trade deadline too — but it feels like the issues on the roster are deep enough that pasting over a few acquisitions this week won’t solve the underlying problems (namely,
massive underperformance from Cal and Julio). Anyway, the M’s will be making big decisions about the rest of their season while playing a three-game set against the Dodgers in Los Angeles. Good luck.
The Dodgers are well on their way towards becoming the first team since the 1998-2000 New York Yankees to win three championships in a row. They’ve got the best record in baseball, a 12.5 game lead in the NL West, and are essentially in cruise control until they reach the playoffs. They’ve dealt with their fair share of injuries this year — Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Edwin Díaz, and Will Smith are all currently on the IL and a knee injury is preventing Shohei Ohtani from pitching at the moment — but the depth on this roster has reduced the impact from all those issues. This team is truly the best in baseball.
While the impact from Ohtani’s knee injury has been focused on his work on the mound, it’s possible the injury has been affecting him at the plate somewhat. He injured the knee on June 11; since then he’s produced a merely human 107 wRC+. The Dodgers have two other former MVPs in their lineup and they’re aging in very divergent ways. Freddy Freeman is in the midst of another fantastic season (140 wRC+) while Mookie Betts has really struggled for the second consecutive season (90 wRC+). Los Angeles also hasn’t gotten much from Kyle Tucker, a huge offseason acquisition; he’s limped to a 99 wRC+ in what has been the worst season of his career. Despite uncharacteristically poor production from two of their superstars, Max Muncy (133 wRC+), Andy Pages (115 wRC+), and Tommy Edman (153 wRC+) have picked up a lot of the slack.
Probable Pitchers
Justin Wrobleski has been one of the unsung heroes of the Dodgers pitching staff. Surrounded by big name pitchers, he’s posted the second lowest ERA and FIP among the starters on Los Angeles’ roster — better than Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, Roki Sasaki, and Blake Snell. Wrobleski isn’t overpowering opposing batters, running one of the lowest strikeout rates among qualified starters. He doesn’t walk many either, which helps his strikeout-to-walk ratio look really good. The key to his success is inducing a ton of weak fly ball contact. That’s suppressed his BABIP and he’s been lucky enough to keep all that elevated contact inside the park. His 4.14 xFIP is nearly two runs higher than his ERA and a run higher than his FIP.
Eric Lauer enjoyed a nice bounce back season in Toronto last year after spending all of 2024 in Korea. He couldn’t keep up the improvements and he was traded to the Dodgers in May. His ERA has come down in Los Angeles, but his peripherals are still pretty rough and his limited success can probably be chalked up to the greatly improved team context he’s pitching in now. The biggest problem for him is the total collapse of his strikeout rate; it’s dropped nearly nine points and it’s currently at a career-low. Both of his breaking balls have seen their whiff rates drop dangerously low. Without those pitches earning swings and misses, he doesn’t have any other weapons to keep batters from pounding his fastball.
Roki Sasaki’s introduction to the major leagues has been pretty rough. A shoulder injury interrupted his adjustment period last year, though he did return late in the season to play a critical role out of the Dodgers bullpen. This year, he’s tweaked his pitch mix to reintroduce a hard splitter to give him two different offspeed pitches to attack batters with. His command is still pretty spotty and his fastball hasn’t given him much of a foundation to work off of. Still, he’s shown spurts of promise with his expanded repertoire and honed mechanics. He may be working through his development process in the big leagues, but he’s shown a lot of resilience in the face of high expectations and tons of failure.
The Big Picture:
The Mariners slipped to third place in the division after the Astros won the first game of their series against the Angels yesterday. Los Angeles was leading 4-2 in the ninth, but allowed four runs on one hit in the top of the ninth to blow the game. After beating up on the Mariners, the Rangers will head to Tampa Bay to face the best team in the AL. Over in the Wild Card race, the Guardians play in Cincinnati this week while the Twins host the Royals.
