Your Los Angeles Dodgers

The Dodgers honked out of three in a row against the Padres going into the All-Star Break.  That sucked from every angle but their 60-32 record was still the best in Major League Baseball so it's far from emergency time.

All of earth knows that the kryptonite for the 2019 Dodgers is 4.08 ERA the bullpen has barfed up.  There are all kinds of rumors attached to that (Matthew Boyd from the Tigers, Amanda Whurlitzer from the Bad News Bears).  It really looks like the pieces are there though.  Joe Kelly looks like he figured it out.  We have learned that you can't bring Scott Alexander in to get a lefty out.  Caleb Ferguson is back in Oklahoma City but he looks like he is also closing in on being legit.

All the winning has been fun to watch but they have done plenty of winning over the last 7 years.  That Guggenheim group had its first full season in 2013.  The Dodgers are 625-440 since.  That is a .587 Win percentage.  They have won the NL West every year since 2013.  That's great but it's time to win the World Series.  Seriously.

OK let's get optimistic

92 games into 2017 The Dodgers were 63-29 hitting .257 scoring 476 runs and striking out 808 times.  When the 2018 Dodgers were 92 games in they were 50-42 hitting .243 scoring 438 runs and striking out 771 times.  From that angle things are really looking up because here in 2019 they are 60-32 hitting .263 scoring 480 runs and striking out 726 times.  Here are couple of other ways to look at the improved offense.  These numbers are all 92 games into the season.

The 2017  Dodgers had 36 games where they struckout 10 or more times.  In 2018 they had 33 games with 10 or more strikeouts.  In 2019  they have struckout 10+ times in 26 games.  That's an improvement.

How about games where they hit under .200 as a team 92 games in?  In 2017 they did it 26 times.  In 2018 it was 30 times.  In 2019 they have stunk it up at that level only 23 times.

This offense is clearly better than the 2017 and 2018 teams that couldn't win the World Series.

As long as we are looking at things this way let's look at the ERA for starting pitchers after 92 games.  2017 3.24.  2018 3.34. 2019 3.07.  Look!  More improvement!

So the question is if this is good enough to overcome the 4.08 bullpen ERA or if there is a move out there to get that on track.  Oh and the bullpen ERA was 2.95 in 2017 and 3.85 in 2018 so that should bring the concern into focus.

So far it's been fun.

Let's get a dog and a beer