By: @OOSSports
The Los Angeles Dodgers have a serious ninth-inning problem, but manager Dave Roberts is not ready to make a change.
Edwin Diaz suffered another brutal outing Thursday night against the Milwaukee Brewers, blowing a two-run lead in the ninth inning before Los Angeles eventually fell 5-4 at Dodger Stadium. The loss marked Diaz’s third blown save in his past four appearances and continued a disastrous start to his Dodgers tenure.
Despite those struggles, Roberts plans to keep Diaz in the closer role.
When asked whether he would consider temporarily moving Diaz out of the ninth inning, Roberts pushed back on the idea.
“Give me another option,” Roberts said, via ESPN’s Alden Gonzalez.
The response reflects both the Dodgers’ continued belief in Diaz and the lack of a clearly superior alternative at the back end of the bullpen.
Edwin Diaz’s struggles continue for Dodgers
Los Angeles signed Diaz to a three-year, $69 million deal during the offseason, adding one of baseball’s most accomplished closers to a bullpen built for another championship run.
His first season with the Dodgers has gone nothing like expected.
Diaz underwent surgery earlier this year to remove loose bodies from his right elbow and missed more than three months. The Dodgers activated him from the injured list in late July, and Roberts immediately returned him to the closer role.
Since then, the results have been alarming.
Diaz surrendered a two-run walk-off home run to Ryan Waldschmidt against the Arizona Diamondbacks last Friday. He then allowed Arizona to tie the game in the ninth inning the following night before briefly rebounding with a clean inning against the Kansas City Royals.
The problems returned Thursday.
Milwaukee entered the ninth trailing 4-2 before Joey Ortiz and David Hamilton delivered consecutive one-out singles. Jackson Chourio and Garrett Mitchell followed with RBI hits to tie the game.
Roberts eventually removed Diaz after he recorded the second out. Alex Vesia entered and surrendered the go-ahead single to Jake Bauers.
Diaz acknowledged afterward that his fastball command had failed him.
“I was throwing my fastball right in the middle,” Diaz said in the report. “When you miss in the middle, you pay.”
Dave Roberts sees no obvious replacement at closer
The Dodgers do have alternatives, but each presents a complication.
Tanner Scott handled closing duties while Diaz was sidelined and has been significantly more effective this season. Baseball-Reference currently credits Scott with a 2.32 ERA and 16 saves.
Los Angeles, however, prefers using Scott more flexibly in high-leverage situations rather than restricting him to the ninth inning.
Other possibilities include Vesia, Evan Phillips, and Edgardo Henriquez, but none has separated himself enough to force Roberts’ hand. Roberts also dismissed a closer-by-committee approach unless the rest of the bullpen begins pitching more consistently.
The manager appears equally concerned about disrupting Diaz’s routine after years of working almost exclusively as a closer.
“It’s just not that easy when a guy’s done it for seven, eight years, whatever it is, to change routines,” Roberts said, according to the report from Gonzalez. “Part of my job is to give him the best opportunity to prepare and have success, and then it goes to the player to kind of go out there and do their job.”
That patience carries risk.
Los Angeles remains comfortably positioned in the NL West, but the Dodgers are also fighting for one of the National League’s top two records and the accompanying first-round playoff bye. Every late-inning collapse becomes more costly as that race tightens.
The bullpen as a whole has also struggled recently, making Diaz’s inability to stabilize the ninth even more significant.
For now, Roberts is betting on the track record over recent results.
Diaz has spent years establishing himself as one of baseball’s premier closers. The Dodgers signed him expecting that version of the right-hander to anchor the final inning of another postseason run.
They have yet to see it consistently.
Roberts is allowing him more time to find it.
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