Key Points
Bullet point summary by AI
- The Los Angeles Dodgers face a three-peat challenge with five key players underperforming this season
- Injuries and slumps have created uncertainty in both the rotation and bullpen just months before October
- The team's ability to address these weaknesses before the trade deadline will determine if champagne problems stay champagne problems
When you're the two-time defending World Series champions, all of your problems are definitionally champagne problems. And to be clear: If you're a third party who doesn't much feel like throwing a pity party for the Los Angeles Dodgers while they're still 25-18 and a half-game back of first in the NL West, I don't blame you.
And yet, with just five wins in their last 14 games (and 10 in their last 24), it's nevertheless fair to say that some chinks have emerged in the armor of what was once MLB's most inevitable powerhouse. The offense, even Shohei Ohtani, has run dry of late. The pitching staff is dealing with some injuries. It all just feels ... a little bit rickety, and when you're chasing a three-peat and baseball immortality, that qualifies as a big deal.
Sure, the Dodgers will probably fine; I'm not here to tell you that this team is in serious risk of missing the playoffs or anything. But over the past two or three weeks, it's been hard to ignore some weak links, ones that might loom large come October if left unaddressed.
RHP Roki Sasaki
With Tyler Glasnow on the IL, Blake Snell just now coming back from a shoulder issue and Emmet Sheehan failing to take the step forward everyone expected so far this season, the Dodgers could really use one more reliable arm in the rotation. They planned on that arm being Sasaki; there's a reason they pulled out all the stops to win his recruiting war a couple of winters ago. But more than a year into his MLB career, he still seems no closer to finding it as a big-league starting pitcher, still struggling to throw strikes consistently and generate swings and misses on his previously high-octane fastball.
Los Angeles has the luxury of treating the regular season as a testing ground, a way of figuring out what works and what doesn't and what's required to get everyone to October as healthy as possible. Still, given all the injury risk in this rotation — not to mention Shohei Ohtani, who hasn't pitched a full season since 2022 — it's not hard to imagine a world in which the Dodgers need some very important innings from Sasaki this fall. And he doesn't seem ready for that spotlight right now.
SS Mookie Betts
Really, you could swap him out for any of L.A.'s foundational bats, from Mookie to Ohtani to Kyle Tucker to Will Smith. The top of this order simply hasn't been good enough, the single biggest reason why the Dodgers find themselves in this current funk.
But I'm singling out Betts here because he's the one in whom I'm least confident about a rebound. He's 33 years old now, and while his 2026 season got waylaid by injury before it could even begin, the early returns have not been super promising (a home run in his return to the lineup on Wednesday night notwithstanding). There's some bad luck baked into Betts' .659 OPS this season, to be sure. Still, the decline is evident, and if he's no longer hitting like a former MVP, this lineup becomes significantly less intimidating.
RHP Edwin Diaz
Even before he landed on the IL, there were red flags around Diaz's diminished fastball velocity and the steep decline in his whiff rate. Maybe that was just early-season rust, a veteran pitcher still rounding into form before the weather warmed up. Now that he's undergone surgery that will keep him out until the second half of the season, though, it's fair to wonder whether the lockdown reliever the Dodgers thought they were getting will ever actually show up this year.
And that's a problem, because the bullpen stands as the likeliest exhaust port in this particular Death Star come October. We saw it last postseason, when a miraculous Sasaki run helped stabilize the closer's role and prevent utter disaster. Signing Diaz was supposed to get the situation under control, but here L.A. is once again with high-leverage questions ahead of the trade deadline. If they don't find compelling answers, it's not hard to see this unit being the reason why they don't win a third title in a row.
OF Teoscar Hernandez
It was a bit curious when the Dodgers unflinchingly handed Hernandez the left-field job this offseason, after a 2025 campaign that saw declines in his production across the board. Safe to say those concerns are even louder now that he's slashing just .248/.325/.372 with four homers to start the year.
As Hernandez's 2024 season fades further and further into the rearview, it's fair to wonder whether the 33-year-old will ever regain his previous thump. And if he doesn't, it's hard to see how exactly he's going to generate value as an every-day player — a role the Dodgers need him to fill, unless we're getting very optimistic about James Tibbs III's ability to hit the ground running at the big-league level.
RHP Blake Treinen
Dodgers fans likely don't need me to do much explaining on this one. Diaz's injury has made even more pressing the need for someone to step up and give L.A. a reliable high-leverage righty option out of the bullpen. Treinen is the most obvious candidate, and yet he's currently pitching to a 4.26 ERA with even worse underlying numbers and far fewer strikeouts than we're used to seeing from him. If he can't find his previous form — and remember, he was once one of the better relievers in the sport when healthy — that makes Andrew Friedman's job at the deadline even tougher, and makes this bullpen even more of a question mark.
Add us as a preferred source on Google