The Dodgers are getting closer to the version of their rotation they expected to have, and Dave Roberts isn’t hiding how he feels about it.
For now, Los Angeles is still dealing with the same kind of starting-pitching mess that showed up last season. Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow have both been working back from injuries, and Shohei Ohtani remains unavailable on the mound for an indefinite stretch because of lingering left knee trouble. Even with that uncertainty hanging over them, the Dodgers’ starters have still put together one of the best combined ERAs in the game.
Roberts sounded encouraged by the latest signs from all three pitchers.
“I feel very confident,” Roberts recently said. “Obviously, with Snell being more built up, everything that I’m hearing from the medical staff. I think Tyler is in a really good spot physically, on his way back to going out, and then Shohei, I think that we’re just trying to be prudent.
“So I think overall in total, I feel very good for the rest of the season with all three of those guys as starting pitchers.”
The outlook has brightened since then. Snell finished a rehab assignment and is set to be activated from the 60-day injured list on Tuesday.
Glasnow is scheduled to make his second rehab start Sunday. Ohtani, meanwhile, has started playing catch again.
Ohtani’s return to the mound has turned out to be more complicated than the Dodgers first expected. The team believed he would be ready to get back to two-way work after the All-Star break, but that never happened.
He also missed one game as a designated hitter because of soreness in the same left knee. Ohtani still believes he’ll pitch again this season, though there’s no timeline yet for when he’ll begin throwing off a mound.
While the club waited for more answers on its injured arms, it also made a major move to reinforce the rotation by trading for Tarik Skubal.
That trade made sense once the Detroit Tigers decided to make their ace available. Skubal took the loss in his Dodgers debut, and he’ll make his first start for the team at Dodger Stadium on Monday.
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For an organization that leans heavily on internal development, days like this matter because they offer a snapshot of who is forcing the issue and who is building momentum at the right time. The recaps across the levels also underscored how broad the talent base looks right now, with contributions coming in different ways and at different stops, even as each affiliate continues working through its own results and individual stat lines. [Read more 🡒]
Pete Crow-Armstrong Is Forcing A Real Cubs MVP Debate
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What keeps this from feeling settled is the pitching angle, which hangs over Ohtanis case as the schedule winds down. Bob Nightengales read is that the outcome could turn on whether Ohtani gets back on the mound before the regular season ends, a wrinkle that would give voters another way to separate him from Crow-Armstrong. Until that becomes clear, the race remains open enough to keep both fan bases watching every update with real interest. [Read more 🡒]
Tyler Glasnow Is Getting Closer But Dodgers Still Need More
Tyler Glasnow took another step forward in Triple-A Oklahoma City on his second minor league rehab start, working 2 2/3 innings and looking much closer to a starters workload than he did the first time out. He struck out two, averaged 95.9 mph on his fastballs and gave up a run on a wild pitch, the kind of early rehab outing that tells the Dodgers the arm is live even while the pitch count and inning count still lag behind a normal rotation turn.
For Los Angeles, the encouraging part is less about the line score than the direction of travel. Glasnow is building back toward the big league club, but the organization still wants to see him stretched out further before it makes any call on a return to the major league rotation, which means there is still at least one more checkpoint to clear before the next real decision arrives. [Read more 🡒]