How the Reds swept the Dodgers and how it affects October

In a series many thought would help the struggling Dodgers reset, the Reds may have exposed the team’s biggest flaws.

Last year, fans, writers and baseball lovers alike spent the summer shouting “THIS TEAM!” while watching the Dodgers accomplish the stuff of legend. Now, we whisper the same words but have lengthened the sentence. We went from cheering to whispering, and wondering “who is this team?” and where are the guys that game oh so close to winning the World Series?

We could try to place blame on the team, and on specific players, but that does nothing. Baseball is a game that fosters the unpredictable, and you don’t win it by eliminating it, but rather by trying to control as much as you can and hope that the rest of it, the unknown, falls your way.

So far, the Dodgers haven’t been able to control much, and they haven’t been on the receiving end of too much good luck, either.

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Some of this, however, is in their control. I wouldn’t dare play manager, because I promise you, no matter what, Dave Roberts is the guy you want in that dugout. Of course, playing manager, to some degree, is in the nature of a baseball fan.

So let us not be managers, but analysts. Let’s analyze this team, and let’s analyze the club that exposed the flaws of our beloved Dodgers.

This series that once seemed nearly meaningless could mean everything come September.

This past weekend wasn’t just rough for the Dodgers, it was bad, turbulent, and heartbreaking. It was the kind of series you do whatever you can to avoid.

So, what happened?

This series was what you would call a perfect storm; everything that could go wrong did go wrong. The pitching that, for a time, looked stable, crumbled. Walker Buehler and Ross Stripling had strong outings, JT Chargois and Kenta Maeda did not.

In this series, Max Muncy and Cody Bellinger both hit it out, but the team struck out a collective 35 times against an average Cincinnati pitching staff.

Yasmani Grandal, a player few thought would be on the team at this point, has been the best they have.

This time last season, the Dodgers were 22-17; not a bad record, but not nearly as good as how they would end the season.

I could go on and on about how the Dodgers aren’t living up to expectations, but that’s obvious. Then again, the expectations that have been set for this team are astronomical. The Dodgers lost the World Series last year, meaning that anything less than winning it this year would be considered failure.

I agree, but the question isn’t if the Dodgers will win the World Series in the near future, but when. I want it to happen, and if you’re reading this, I bet you do, too.

That said, the main focus for this team now is to fix the flaws in their pitching and the fractures in their hitting that the Reds exposed.

The Dodgers do not have to be the 2017 version of themselves. They don’t have to take baseball by storm. They don’t have to win over 100 games.

What they do have to do is get the job done. They have to be the 2015 Royals and do what they couldn’t do the year before.

That’s what we all hope, whether or not it’ll happen is a question of its own. It’s a question we can’t possibly answer this early in the season.

Last season, the Dodgers hit a collective 221 homers. This season, they’ve hit 36 which means they are on pace to hit 146 homers in 2018; a vast and impactful difference.

That’s just one stat, there are a thousand others. What these stats are saying, now at least, is that this is not the team we know. What the Cincinnati Reds exposed was that the Dodgers are not as strong as they once were.

Now, all that’s left for them to do is figure out exactly what the problem is, and do everything in their power to fix it.

Next: Time to Wave the White Flag on the Dodgers

And us? We get to watch, write, analyze and hope that this team is able to, once again, do the impossible.

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