The Dodgers fell from first place, but their season is starting this weekend against Nl West-Lead Padres
Dodgers’ seven -month spring training is officially completed.
The 2025 Los Angeles season, for all useful purposes, begins on Friday evening. The Padres de San Diego which rides – suddenly a match in the West National League for the first time since April 23 – are in town for what should be another memorable notch in a rivalry that has flourished in the best of baseball. The reigning champions, on the other hand, are in shock, licking their injuries with an embarrassing scanning of the series in Anaheim. It was the first time in the history of the highway series that the angels went 6-0 against their northern enemies in one season.
Advertisement
Speed, hated and hated during the winter in teams for ages, these dodgers have so far fell on these high expectations. The most expensive list in the history of the MLB, a list that was formulated as a referendum in a way on the state of money in baseball, was a ball of itself often injured and underperforming.
Panic feels premature, but the concern seems justified.
Mookie Betts and Teoscar Hernández, cornerston of the league team last year, were offensively. Betts seems to have done something of a corner, but still has only 12 circuits over the year. Hernández, who was signed in Los Angeles for a three -year contract during the winter, has an OPS of .644 since June 1. Freddie Freeman is also mediocre in the past two months after a sparkling April and May. Max Muncy rebounded after a horrible start, but the injuries made it a very disjointed season for the third basic player with lively eyes.
Advertisement
[Join or create a Yahoo Fantasy Football league for the 2025 NFL season]
The only Dodger strikers who play expectations or above are the Voltiger Andy Pages, the receiver Will Smith and, obviously, Shohei Ohtani. Any concern concerning the Ohtani losing a flat step after the return to the mound was rectification in a resounding way; He has been 18 circuits since his first pitch outing of the year on June 17.
Ohtani, remarkably, has also been the most impactful launcher of the team lately. He launched 4 1/3 rounds against the angels on Wednesday, his longest out of the season. Earlier in the season, there was a skepticism if Ohtani the launcher would be used in October in October. Now he looks like a starter of the game 1.
And even if the dodgers become healthier on the mound – Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell are both back – the problems of rotation injury are a huge reason for the club to be second in the NL West. Eighty-six MLB launchers have launched at least 100 rounds this season; Only one, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, is a Los Angeles Dodger. The enclosure of the lifts, too, was a bit of a rotating door. The underperformance of the Blake Treinen, Kirby Yates and Tanner Scott off-season. This overall lack of pitching continuity, although it is not a problem to move forward, was an obstacle throughout the season.
Advertisement
Throughout the year, the organizational philosophy of the Dodgers naturally prioritized the long game. It is the parade or the bust. No one in a power position at Chavez Ravine is, or has never been, hellbent on the development of a regular season juggernaut. The club was passive on the Ohtani pitch rehabilitation calendar. They continue to use a resolutely conservative approach to the use of enclosures and the workload. An surprisingly silent trade deadline has only reaffirmed this mentality of “trusting the process”. Each decision, each transaction aims to put the club in the best possible position when the actual season begins.
It is not necessarily a bad thing. But that’s a huge reason why the dodgers are there.
The hard cold truth is that only October counts. The MLB season is a survival marathon followed by a total chaos sprint. Everyone in Dodgerland – coaches, players, executives – knows. If the dodgers fall on a joker place, take fire in the playoffs and lifting another trophy, no one will make a slow summer or the lack of a division crown. The team of last year had similar moments of concern – remember this triple game – and look at how it turned out.
Advertisement
And yet, mathematics have become uncomfortable, the inevitable paadres. On July 3, San Diego had nine drift games, tied with the Giants of San Francisco in third place. Their chances of winning the division, according to Fangraphs, were 0.6%. The Dodgers, on the other hand, sat comfortably at 98.2%. This figure has since decreased to 61.8. If the Schneid continues and the dodgers are forced to settle for a joker, that will not alone condemn their season, but that will push them in an additional sleeve in a particularly volatile qualifying series.
Perhaps the dodgers, with the high issues and the light on occasion this weekend. This, given the talent and experience on the list, would not make anyone absolutely no one. It remains far too early to call this team a disaster or even a disappointment.
And yet, this season of Dodgers 2025 is undeniably not part. Depending on the way things are happening this weekend, the train could steal even further from the tracks.
Let’s talk again on Monday.
