LOS ANGELES — Ahead of Tuesday’s game against the Pirates, manager Dave Roberts made sure to get his point across. When asked about the inability of most of the Dodgers’ starting players to get deep into games, Roberts said that needs to change going forward.
That didn’t change in the club’s 7-9 loss at Dodger Stadium, however, as rookie Emmet Sheehan conceded five runs on four hits and went in for 3 2/3 innings, the shortest stint of his young big league career.
“It’s tough,” Roberts said. “Emmet wasn’t sharp tonight because he’s been walking and falling behind and not being able to get deep into a game. … We did our best. We are able to win the game. It just didn’t happen.”
Los Angeles’ current situation was compounded by the pre-game news that right-hander Dustin May will undergo right elbow surgery on July 18 to repair his flexor tendon, effectively ending his 2023 season.
This will be May’s second major elbow surgery of his career. He underwent surgery from Tommy John in 2021, which meant he had to miss most of the ’22 season before returning last August. The Dodgers hope to have him back sometime in 2024, but even that is unclear until he undergoes surgery.
“It’s difficult. I feel for Dustin,” Roberts said. “The work he did after Tommy John to come back and go through that again is disappointing for all of us.”
In 85 games this season, short stints have been a recurring theme for the Dodgers’ starting players other than Clayton Kershaw. The club came into play Tuesday at 425 2/3 innings with the 8th fewest innings from its starting rotation among any major league pitching staff this season. That’s a big change from a year ago when the Dodgers had their starting team’s 11th most innings (825 1/3 innings).
The problem has only gotten worse over the past week. With Sheehan’s reduced stint on Tuesday, there are now four straight games in which a Dodgers starter hasn’t gone more than four innings. In that span, the starters gave up 15 runs with 21 hits in 14 1/3 innings.
During that time, the Dodgers were down 3-1 against the Royals and Pirates, two teams under .500.
May’s prolonged absence will pose another obstacle for this struggling staff.
When healthy, May was one of the Dodgers’ best pitchers. This season was expected to be his breakthrough season, and it got off to a good start as the Feuerballer took a 4-1 lead with a 2.63 ERA. Although the Dodgers always knew that late-season surgery was a possibility for May, they hoped to have him back towards the end of the season to fix some of their rotation problems.
That’s not going to happen, of course, so the Dodgers continue to lag behind with a few questions until they look for reinforcements. They will be without Kershaw, who was inducted into the IL on Monday. Julio Urías has been out for more than a month with a left hamstring injury and has not looked well this season. Tony Gonsolin wasn’t a constant option and always struggled to get deep into games. Noah Syndergaard is still on the team and hosting live bullpen sessions, but this looks like a failed experiment. Walker Buehler is on the mend after his own surgery on Tommy John and could make it back towards the end of this season, if not in 2024.
All of this has resulted in the Dodgers relying on rookie right-handers Bobby Miller and Sheehan to fill many roles in the rotation. On Tuesday, Sheehan had no control over his pitches and needed 37 to get out of the first inning alone.
“Overall, I feel like I’ve gotten better since I got here, which I’m glad about,” Sheehan said. “But I think this week was obviously my worst so far. I just have to work on it and come back next week.”
The lack of production of the starters has now made the bullpen more vulnerable. This was also evident Tuesday when Evan Phillips was forced to pitch for the third straight season, something he had never done before. He allowed three earned runs and missed in the ninth, his second of the season.
“I really just wanted to take on the challenge of being available for the team when needed,” Phillips said. “I got a call tonight. It just didn’t work out.”