Bye-bye bye.
Whats up, Dodger bullpen.
It was all so acquainted. It was all so infuriating. It was the 2025 season boiled down into three hours of roars, then screams, then sighs.
The gasping, grappling Dodgers wanted a three-game sweep of the Philadelphia Phillies this week to have any probability at a first-round bye within the upcoming playoffs.
Dodgers pitcher Anthony Banda (43) reacts in the course of the first inning of a loss to Philadelphia Phillies at Dodger Stadium on Monday.
(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Occasions)
One recreation down, and their bullpen has already suffocated them.
They’re not going to get the bye. They couldn’t survive Philly’s first punch. It was the identical previous story. The Dodgers’ regularly vexing reduction pitchers gave again a two-run lead, ruined two ensuing comebacks after which had been burned for a tenth inning double steal that led to the successful run within the Phillies’ 6-5 victory.
In a scene harking back to previous October failures, a mournful Dodger Stadium crowd witnessed the Phillies dancing out of their dugout and squeezing into memento T-shirts and loudly celebrating on the sphere after clinching the Nationwide League East title.
In a scene additionally harking back to previous October failures, just some steps from the social gathering, the Dodgers clubhouse was deathly quiet.
Max Muncy was requested concerning the bullpen, which allowed all six Phillies’ runs Monday, together with three homers.
“That’s a tough question,” he mentioned.
He tried to reply it anyway, saying, “It’s frustrating from a team perspective, but they’ve done a great job for us all year and they’ll continue to do a great job.”
Sorry, however there is no such thing as a spinning out of this mess. This isn’t a championship bullpen. This isn’t even a pennant-winning bullpen. This bullpen has been overworked and outmatched and easily outplayed all season, and when the Dodger entrance workplace had an opportunity to repair it on the commerce deadline, they did just about nothing.
It’s everybody’s fault. It’s an organizational failure. This bullpen goes to be the dying of them. The sluggish expiration formally began Monday.
Fueled by fats pitches from Anthony Banda and Jack Dreyer and Alex Vesia and Blake Treinen, the Dodgers suffered a loss which will properly have ended their hopes of defending their title.
Now trailing the Phillies by 5 ½ video games with a dozen video games to play, there’s just about no manner the Dodgers can cross them and end with the Nationwide League’s second-best document, which implies as an alternative of getting per week off they’re headed for a harmful three-game wild card collection.
In the event that they win the West over the San Diego Padres — no assure — they are going to play these three video games at residence. In the event that they end second within the West, they are going to play these three video games on the street.
Both manner, a group with a cooked bullpen and a sore-handed star catcher and all types of uncertainty surrounding their rotation gained’t get the benefit of a much-needed relaxation.
“We want the bye, obviously,” Freddie Freeman instructed reporters final weekend.
It’s surprisingly not so apparent to everybody. All through the subsequent two weeks there’ll undoubtedly be specialists who will make the argument that the Dodgers don’t actually need or want a bye week as a result of it robs the group of its routine and rhythm.
Don’t be a dummy.
Dodgers pitcher Anthony Banda throws from the mound throughout a loss to the Phillies at Dodger Stadium on Monday.
(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Occasions)
The Dodgers had been determined for that bye. The Dodgers knew they wanted that bye. They knew they wanted to relaxation the relievers, arrange a Shohei Ohtani-led rotation, and provides Will Smith’s proper hand time to heal.
Sure, the bye week bewitched them in 2022 and 2023, when the offense misplaced its swagger and the Dodgers had been crushed in two gorgeous division collection upsets by the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks.
However, then once more, they earned the bye final yr and you understand how that ended up.
They wanted to cross the Phillies. And so they wanted to start out that course of this week, because the Phillies’ remaining schedule features a closing six-game stretch towards the Miami Marlins and Minnesota Twins.
Dodgers supervisor Dave Roberts is understandably steering away from the bye-no bye debate, telling the media, “We’re gonna try to win as many games as we can. … Where it falls out is where is falls out. … I don’t think it matters for me to say how important it is. … I kind of just want to win games and see where it all plays out.”
Right here’s the way it — ugh — performed out Monday:
Banda begins the sport as an opener and permits a shot into the right-center subject stands by Kyle Schwarber.
Dreyer enters the sport with a two-run lead within the seventh and permits a two-run homer to anyone named Weston Wilson.
Vesia permits a go-ahead homer by Bryce Harper within the eighth.
Dodgers pitcher Alex Vesia tosses a rosin bag in frustration after Phillies first baseman Bryce Harper homered on the high of the eighth inning at Dodger Stadium on Monday.
(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Occasions)
Treinen doesn’t maintain the runners on base within the tenth, permits a double steal, and JT Realmuto hits the eventual game-winning fly ball.
“I had the guys that I wanted, and that doesn’t always work out,” mentioned Roberts.
It feels prefer it’s too late to work out.
“Trying to see which guys step up,” mentioned Roberts. “Just gonna try to figure out who’s going to seize the opportunity.”
On Monday evening, the chance seized them, dragging them right into a three-game collection that would price them all the pieces.
Powerful to beat a wild card opponent with a bullpen that folds.
