The Dodgers left Miami with another bullpen mess and a growing sense that the late innings are becoming a real problem, not just a bad stretch.
Los Angeles held a 4-2 lead going into the bottom of the ninth on Sunday, then watched it slip away in ugly fashion. Tanner Scott, the $72 million closer, was summoned to finish the job, but he allowed two infield singles and a double that tied the game before being pulled.
Dave Roberts then turned to Brock Stewart, who fell behind 2-1 on Agustin Ramirez and gave up a two-run homer to end it. Miami walked off with a 6-4 win.
The reaction came fast, and local radio host Doug McKain captured plenty of the frustration: “Brock Stewart has postseason disaster written all over him. Hopefully the Dodgers realize that now.”
Stewart took the heat after Sunday’s loss, but the bigger issue goes deeper than one blown lead. The Dodgers’ bullpen has been trending the wrong way for months, and the latest collapse only made that harder to ignore.
Scott’s September has been rough. He now owns a 9.82 ERA this month, and Sunday marked his second blown save in September.
Stewart hasn’t been much steadier, carrying a 7.36 ERA this month. Those are small samples, sure, but they’re also coming from pitchers Roberts has been trusting in the biggest spots.
The broader numbers aren’t much kinder. The Dodgers bullpen has a 4.65 ERA in September, which ranks 15th in MLB.
Since the break, that mark sits at 4.25, good for 22nd. That’s not a one-night breakdown.
That’s a unit moving in the wrong direction.
Part of the issue has been the way the season has forced more innings onto a group that wasn’t built for this kind of workload. The bullpen problems started showing up last month when a thinner rotation began leaning harder on the relief corps.
There’s also the roster construction piece. The Dodgers went looking for help after Scott’s tough 2025 season and turned to Edwin Diaz, but when Diaz struggled, Scott had to step back into the role.
Diaz has been bad and is currently injured, and that has left Roberts with fewer late-game answers. The front office’s inability to add a reliable arm at the deadline after three straight misses on top free agents has only made the situation worse.
This is what makes Sunday so frustrating for the Dodgers. It isn’t that the bullpen lacks talent.
Scott was excellent for much of the year, and Stewart posted a 2.12 ERA in his first 17 appearances after returning from injury, even if the control issues were already there. But trust in the late innings evaporates fast when the game keeps slipping away.
Edgardo Henriquez also gave up a couple of runs on Sunday before Scott and Stewart finished the collapse, which only adds to the list of arms Roberts can’t fully lean on right now. There are still useful pitchers in the group, but there aren’t many who feel dependable every night.
That leaves the Dodgers heading toward October with a bullpen that may need constant juggling. They can mix and match, piggyback, and hope a fresh approach helps, but time is running short.
The offense should have owned Sunday after Josue De Paula’s big home run. Instead, the bullpen became the story again.
And with two weeks left in the regular season, the Dodgers are staring at a problem that no longer looks temporary. They aren’t just running out of bullpen options. They’re running out of bullpen.
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