OAKLAND — It’s been a little more than a month since Gavin Stone’s rookie season reached its pinnacle. The 25-year-old right-hander’s dazzling first half had its exclamation point with a complete-game shutout June 26 at Guaranteed Rate Field. His ERA was 2.73; claims he should be an All-Star weren’t unwarranted. The Los Angeles Dodgers right-hander kept his team’s lead in the division to 8 1/2 games.
They were banged up, and they had scuffled for much of the last month. But at least Stone was a pleasant surprise.
That, too, has gone away for these struggling Dodgers, who dropped their fifth game out of six on this road trip (and sixth loss in their last eight games) with a 6-5 loss to the Oakland Athletics on Friday night.
They took a two-run lead in the first inning on a Teoscar Hernández homer off Oakland’s Joey Estes, then didn’t get on base again until the sixth — and didn’t record another hit until the seventh. Stone showed signs of the swing-and-miss stuff eluding him over the last month, but he sat staring ahead in the dugout as Brent Rooker put the game all but out of reach with a two-run homer off Joe Kelly.
Even after Shohei Ohtani’s three-run shot brought the Dodgers to within a run with two outs in the ninth, the damage was done.
“If I could have contributed a little bit more I think we wouldn’t have been in that spot,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. Ohtani, who snapped an 0-for-15 drought with the homer, had grounded out with the bases loaded in his previous at-bat, the most substantive rally the Dodgers mustered all evening with their short-handed lineup.
Rooker’s blast also stung Stone’s final line. After allowing five runs and recording just 12 outs, Stone has a 7.15 ERA since that triumphant night in Chicago. After avoiding disaster early, Stone allowed five of the last eight batters he faced to reach safely. Shea Langeliers smoked an elevated changeup. Seth Brown added another two batters later on a fastball at the top of the zone. Then a walk, triple and double ended Stone’s night without recording an out in the fifth.
431 ft. bomb from Bangeliers 🤯 pic.twitter.com/Kj6o7cWA81
— Oakland A’s (@Athletics) August 3, 2024
“I’m just not executing in certain counts, certain situations,” Stone said.
Stone’s fastball velocity Friday was up slightly over his season average. While Dodgers manager Dave Roberts noted Stone is on pace for a career high in innings pitched, Stone ended the night at 111 2/3 for the year. Last season, he logged 131 2/3 innings between the big leagues and the minors. But, it’s not nothing for the only Dodgers starter who hasn’t missed a turn through the rotation this season.
“I don’t know if it’s fatigue,” Roberts said, “but it very well could be.”
Adding another struggling starting pitcher into the mix isn’t something this team is positioned to absorb. Since Stone’s breakout start, Dodgers starters have combined for a 5.88 ERA — the second-worst in baseball. No rotation has logged fewer innings in that span.
The Dodgers have played middling baseball for months, and the formula has been simple. Their pitching has taken on water, with each day submerging the rotation, the bullpen or both. Even a complete lineup would strain to put together successful stretches; given the injuries that have decimated baseball’s most top-heavy group, that uphill climb has only gotten steeper this month.
“When you have a good team, the only question is if everybody can stay healthy,” Hernández said. “Obviously, we had a lot of injuries lately.”
This miserable week has seen the Dodgers without Mookie Betts (fractured hand), Freddie Freeman (emergency leave), Max Muncy (strained oblique), Miguel Rojas (flexor strain) and Chris Taylor (strained groin). Their biggest position player acquisition at the deadline, Tommy Edman, is still a little while away from playing his first big-league games of the season. Will Smith, one of three All-Stars still in the lineup, has hit .200 since June 1.
“I think certain guys that are playing right now, essentially playing every day, are maybe being a little exposed,” Roberts said. “You’re not being able to protect certain guys because our depth is certainly tapped in. … The guys we’re running out there are doing the best they can.”
It’s left a group flailing to muster any momentum, and it’s left Ohtani and Hernández to generate much of the offense. They drove in all five runs Friday.
“It’s just not Shohei’s job alone to carry this offense,” Roberts said. “That’s impossible.”
Friday did nothing to rinse out the sour taste following the first full losing month the franchise had seen since April 2018. The two clubs immediately behind them in the NL West standings, San Diego and Arizona, gained ground. Each trails by only four games, the smallest margin since April. It’s a legitimate division race now.
“We certainly weren’t taking anything for granted,” Roberts said Friday afternoon. “The Padres certainly played really good baseball. They got themselves back into the division race. … We just got to get back to winning baseball games.”
Their path to winning games is as precarious as ever.
Finding answers with the trade deadline behind them remains complicated. The club acquired the best pitcher moved during this deadline in right-hander Jack Flaherty, who assumes the responsibility of ending the skid Saturday night. While the club has liked what it’s gotten out of rookies River Ryan, Landon Knack and Justin Wrobleski, it’s handling them delicately.
Then there is Walker Buehler, who has struggled in two rehabilitation starts with Triple-A Oklahoma City; he was tagged for six runs while requiring 86 pitches to record 11 outs Thursday. Roberts said Friday afternoon that Buehler will get one more start at that level before returning to the big-league club — struggles and all.
“The results certainly weren’t there,” Roberts said. “He’s an All-Star major-league pitcher. So at some point in time, you do the build-up. He’s got one more. Then he’s got to help us at the major-league level. It comes down to Walker competing, making pitches and us running him out there. That’s where I’m at.”
Bobby Miller started a postseason game for the Dodgers 10 months ago, but his presence in the club’s rotation during this stretch is just as in flux. Miller was optioned to the minors less than a month ago, and he was scratched from his scheduled start Friday after feeling tightness in his adductor following a bullpen session. He too has struggled to find traction in his last few outings.
Stone has pitched his way into consideration to earn a start in October. But waiting and counting on reinforcements has been tedious. Treading water has instead meant taking on water.
“We got to find a way to turn the page,” Roberts said.
(Photo of Gavin Stone: Godofredo A. Vásquez / Associated Press)
