{"id":14859,"date":"2025-07-16T22:40:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T22:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/14859\/"},"modified":"2025-07-16T22:40:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-16T22:40:10","slug":"dodgers-second-half-storylines-what-to-watch-for-from-the-defending-champions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/14859\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers second-half storylines: What to watch for from the defending champions"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles Dodgers opened the season in Tokyo with chances of winning the World Series set at 23.2 percent, according to FanGraphs, easily the best in the sport.<\/p>\n

They woke up to the All-Star break with chances set at 21.6 percent, albeit with an even wider gap over their next-closest competitor. The Dodgers haven\u2019t played all that well. They are banged up. \u201cFour days off,\u201d Freddie Freeman said, \u201ccomes at the right time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, the Dodgers are in first place with the best record in the National League and a roster that projection systems remain endlessly bullish on.<\/p>\n

Here are three storylines that matter over the final 65 games of the Dodgers\u2019 season:<\/p>\n

Can Mookie Betts get something going?<\/p>\n

He has been a productive player. He hasn\u2019t looked like one. His 2.4 Baseball Reference WAR this season is largely carried by his superb defense at shortstop, which is a sentence no one expected to type when Betts took on this unprecedented position change experiment in earnest this winter<\/a>. His .696 OPS would be the worst of his career.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Mookie Betts sputtered through an underwhelming first half, but Dave Roberts said: \u201cI think he\u2019s healthy. I think he\u2019s strong.\u201d (Jason Parkhurst \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n

Betts has had sound reasoning in that, if he knew what was wrong, it would no longer be an issue. It\u2019s not as if he\u2019s striking out \u2014 he\u2019s actually done so less frequently (10.7 percent) than ever and at the eighth-lowest rate in baseball. But he\u2019s swinging more than ever to try to break out of this season-long slump, and getting much less out of it. His power numbers are way down (.381 slugging percentage compared to .491 last year). So is his average exit velocity (down from 89.9 mph to 88.5 mph).<\/p>\n

Betts said he created bad habits trying to combat his decreased bat speed, something he\u2019s trained for in the past. Losing 20 pounds due to an illness right before Opening Day surely didn\u2019t help. His struggles reached a point this month when Betts got the proverbial Dave Roberts \u201creset\u201d day<\/p>\n

Still, no one in the organization will tie Betts\u2019 decreased offensive production to his position change. Even if shortstop doesn\u2019t have as much of a mental wear on him as it did last year, when Betts produced an .892 OPS at the position, there\u2019s a physical toll. There are no plans to move him off the spot.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just can\u2019t see that you go out there and stick him in right field tonight and he\u2019s going to throw out two hits or three hits, or he goes to second base and he\u2019s going to go on a heater,\u201d Roberts said this month. \u201cThat\u2019s hard for me to kind of imagine. But it\u2019s a fair ask. I just don\u2019t see that as the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, there\u2019s reason to believe that Betts could use the All-Star respite as much as anyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think he\u2019s healthy,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cI think he\u2019s strong. I think he\u2019s playing great defense. It\u2019s just trying to figure out his offense and the mechanics of it. He hasn\u2019t really gotten ahead by getting hot yet. But it\u2019s coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dodgers probably need it. It\u2019s not likely they will pivot to something different anytime this season.<\/p>\n

What does this rotation look like?<\/p>\n

The Dodgers invested plenty into this bullpen over the winter, hoping to avoid Andrew Friedman\u2019s least-favorite activity<\/a>: trading for relievers at the deadline. They likely will have to trade for at least one by the end of this month anyway. So it goes.<\/p>\n

But adding a rotation piece, barring an impact one becoming available at the right price, doesn\u2019t seem to be as likely a move. So that means crafting an October rotation will include choosing from internal options.<\/p>\n

Yoshinobu Yamamoto is a first-time All-Star who has already topped his workload from his rookie season with 104 1\/3 innings pitched. He\u2019s topped those workloads in Japan, and his shoulder issue from a year ago appears to be a thing of the past, but it\u2019s still worth monitoring how Yamamoto handles a full year\u2019s work. The Dodgers\u2019 cushion in the standings should give them the ability to be flexible, anyway. Only Yamamoto and Dustin May have made every turn through the Dodgers\u2019 rotation this season.<\/p>\n

May\u2019s availability has been a pleasant surprise. Roberts said the right-hander will likely get shut down at some point in the second half for a respite. Though if fully healthy, it\u2019s fair to wonder if May (and his 4.96 ERA that ranks 10th-worst in baseball) gets bounced from the rotation entirely.<\/p>\n

Health is still a major \u201cif.\u201d Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow combined to make just eight starts in the first half. Glasnow made his return just before the break, but he must show he will still be standing in October. Snell is on a rehab assignment and will spend part of the All-Star break throwing three innings against hitters at the Dodgers\u2019 Arizona spring training complex. If both are healthy and pitching well in the postseason, they could join Yamamoto to form a formidable trio.<\/p>\n

Shohei Ohtani\u2019s role in the picture remains relevant. The Dodgers are being as deliberate as they can be with a guy who is essentially treating big-league games as a minor-league rehab assignment. Will he be built up for full starts before the postseason? Do the Dodgers even want that? He\u2019s looked incredibly effective in his short bursts, which creates the temptation to unleash a full-fledged Ohtani.<\/p>\n

There are wild cards. Emmet Sheehan has hit the ground running, just more than 13 months removed from Tommy John surgery. If healthy and effective, it\u2019s hard to imagine a postseason pitching staff without him in it. Clayton Kershaw is pitching well and helped the Dodgers soak up innings, reaching his 3,000th strikeout along the way. Maybe Tony Gonsolin gets back and changes the math.<\/p>\n

What is there to make of Roki Sasaki? This isn\u2019t the year<\/a> anyone envisioned. But he\u2019s started throwing bullpen sessions this week. He\u2019s healthy enough for the Dodgers to start tweaking his delivery in hopes of unlocking what they believe can be an effective major-league pitcher. Roberts threw out a late August timeline for Sasaki, which is the first time there\u2019s been any remote clarity on what the rest of his season looks like.<\/p>\n

A stealth MVP candidate on the roster?<\/p>\n

The National League leader in batting average (and runner-up in OPS) hits in the center of the Dodgers\u2019 lineup. It\u2019s not Shohei Ohtani, who is in the midst of another MVP-worthy campaign. It\u2019s not Freddie Freeman, who torched the sport through May before cooling off considerably. It\u2019s Will Smith, who holds a 30-point lead over Freeman and Brendan Donovan for the NL batting title and has produced one of the finest starts to a season in his career.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s up there as far as being overlooked,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cThat\u2019s why he\u2019s vanilla. You know what you\u2019re going to get, but you probably don\u2019t appreciate it as much as you should.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith floundered in the second half of 2024. Same goes for 2023. Each time, it involved a reason inherent to the catching positon: he was banged up. In 2023, Smith played through a broken rib that altered his swing mechanics. Last year, he played through a bone bruise in his ankle that bothered him up to this spring. The Dodgers have sought to give him extra rest this year as a result. It\u2019s part of why Dalton Rushing is up with the big-league club, and why longtime backstop Austin Barnes was discarded. The team wants to avoid a similar drop-off, meaning Rushing has essentially logged one start per series. Smith has caught three days in a row just five times all season.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s worked.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very demanding because of the catching, right?\u201d Roberts said. \u201cI do think us being mindful of how we\u2019re using him has kept him fresh.\u201d<\/p>\n

He\u2019s still played enough to keep him qualified for something baseball hasn\u2019t seen in a while: Buster Posey was the last catcher to win the batting title, while logging 114 games behind the plate in his 2012 NL MVP season. Joe Mauer did it three times \u2014 2006, 2008, 2009. Before him? Only Ernie Lombardi (1938, 1942) and \u201cBubbles\u201d Hargrave (1926).<\/p>\n

(Top photo of Will Smith: Eric Thayer \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Dodgers opened the season in Tokyo with chances of winning the World Series set at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[2323,363,99],"class_list":["post-14859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}