{"id":848131,"date":"2026-09-15T02:10:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-15T02:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/848131\/"},"modified":"2026-09-15T02:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-15T02:10:12","slug":"edwin-diaz-continues-to-struggle-could-be-left-off-dodgers-postseason-roster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/848131\/","title":{"rendered":"Edwin D\u00edaz continues to struggle, could be left off Dodgers\u2019 postseason roster"},"content":{"rendered":"

CINCINNATI \u2014 The Los Angeles Dodgers set out this winter to address the closer position for good. Instead, they\u2019re facing the possibility that a reliever they signed as a star free agent will be excluded from their postseason plans for a second consecutive season.<\/p>\n

Edwin D\u00edaz continues to struggle, as Tanner Scott did a year ago, and his rehab assignment with Triple-A Oklahoma City has gone poorly enough that Dodgers manager Dave Roberts acknowledged Monday the club could leave the three-time All-Star closer off the postseason roster. Against minor-leaguers Sunday, D\u00edaz surrendered five runs, walked three, hit a batter and recorded just two outs in his worst appearance yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to go with our best pitchers, as far as performance, talent, all that stuff,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cSo my bet is that he will be (on the roster). But again, there\u2019s got to be some kind of evidence or something for us, again, to sort of bet on. And so my bet is yes, but we still got to see something.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dodgers gave D\u00edaz three years and $69 million<\/a> to address a bullpen that floundered in 2025. They won their second consecutive World Series despite Scott \u2014 who signed a four-year, $72 million contract \u2014 not appearing in a single playoff game.<\/p>\n

A second plunge into the deep end of the relief market brought even worse results than the 4.74 ERA and league-worst 10 blown saves Scott had in 2025. D\u00edaz\u2019s famous trumpets have sounded more like a sad trombone.<\/p>\n

D\u00edaz\u2019s 16 appearances with the Dodgers yielded a disastrous 11.85 ERA. He missed three months due to arthroscopic surgery to remove loose bodies in his right elbow. Upon his return, he struggled enough that the Dodgers almost immediately put him back on the injured list<\/a> for what they called a neck issue. They believed his struggles were mechanical, citing the lowest arm angle of his career (14.9 degrees) as a reason his stuff and command were nowhere near where they needed to be.<\/p>\n

Chipper Jones on the Braves’ postseason outlook<\/p>\n

Jayson Stark<\/p>\n

Attempts to correct the issue have not worked. What was supposed to be a pair of rehab outings has been extended. The organization thought Sunday\u2019s outing could be the final step before activation, with D\u00edaz joining the team in Cincinnati this week to try to re-earn his closer\u2019s job.<\/p>\n

But D\u00edaz has allowed six runs and walked seven of the 21 batters he\u2019s faced since starting his rehab. Even more concerning is how D\u00edaz\u2019s delivery seems even more out of whack than before. His fastball still lacks the north-south movement that it needs to succeed. On that pitch this season, he\u2019s averaged 11.8 inches of induced vertical break, which measures how much \u201chop\u201d or \u201cride\u201d the pitch generates. The 15 fastballs he threw Sunday generated just 9.7 inches of IVB.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s plenty for D\u00edaz to fix, and not a lot of time.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe needs to pitch better,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cI think the world of him. The baseball card looks great. But it\u2019s like, where we\u2019re at, there\u2019s got to be something for us to be able to hang our hat on. And he knows that. He knows that. He wants to pitch well.\u201d<\/p>\n

So the Dodgers summoned rehabbing reliever Kris Bubic to join the big club Monday instead. Bubic is expected to pitch as soon as Wednesday, Roberts said. Bubic, a former All-Star starting pitcher with the Kansas City Royals, was acquired at the trade deadline and has thrown 5 2\/3 scoreless innings with nine strikeouts on his rehab assignment since the trade.<\/p>\n

D\u00edaz will stick with Oklahoma City for at least one more outing on Wednesday, and the organization will evaluate from there, Roberts said.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers will spend the coming days trying to sort out how they will attack the ninth inning. One option went on the IL on Monday, when the Dodgers placed hard-throwing reliever Edgardo Henriquez on the shelf with a lower back issue; Henriquez has been the Dodgers\u2019 most effective reliever recently, with a 1.69 ERA since Aug. 5. Now, his regular season is over.<\/p>\n

Scott, who has bounced back this year with a 2.91 ERA, will be part of fixing the ninth-inning problem they thought they\u2019d avoid entirely when they signed D\u00edaz.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CINCINNATI \u2014 The Los Angeles Dodgers set out this winter to address the closer position for good. Instead,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":848132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[2323,363,99],"class_list":["post-848131","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\/848131","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=848131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/848131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/848132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=848131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=848131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=848131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}