Dodgers struggle to find pitching beyond Kershaw, Greinke
NEW YORK— On paper, it should be the easiest of team building exercises.
The Dodgers already employ Clayton Kershaw, he of the 301 strikeouts, and Zack Greinke, he of the 1.66 ERA. Just add a competent third and perhaps fourth starter, and start preparing the trophy case for the World Series victories to follow.
But that's not how it's happened in Los Angeles, and in Monday night's 13-7 loss, a leading indicator of why 2015 might be the same story played out over three innings at Citi Field.
The Dodgers were staked to a 3-0 lead, four hits strung together in the second inning against Mets starter Matt Harvey, nobody's idea of an afterthought as a third starter.
But Brett Anderson, given the assignment of being the lone non-Kershaw/Greinke in the game, allowed the Mets to take the lead back with four in the second, including a bases-clearing double by Curtis Granderson, a lefty against the lefty Anderson. Two more Mets runs followed in the third against Anderson.
And Alex Wood, the team's fourth starter pushed aside by a pregame decision to come back with Kershaw on three days rest, fared no better, allowing a long Yoenis Cespedes home run in the fourth that pushed the Mets' lead to 10-3, largely ending the proceedings.
For a team with a $300 million payroll, it is hard to imagine another early knockout deemed satisfactory to ownership. But even if the Dodgers should rally and win this series, exactly how they go about capturing the next two, each of them a best-of-seven, with two reliable starting pitchers is a mystery.
For his part, Dodgers manager Don Mattingly expressed confidence in the two pitchers who had just put him in a 2-1 series hole.
"Those guys have been okay," Mattingly said of Anderson and Wood, and then, as if giving himself a pep talk kept revising his appraisal upward. "They've been okay. You know, yeah, they've been fine, actually. Actually, Wood is throwing the ball pretty good for us. Brett has thrown the ball good for the most part. No, they've been fine."
The problem is, no, they haven't. After pitching to a 3.00 ERA through July 1, Anderson slumped to a 4.48 mark over the final 15 starts of the season, something perhaps attributable to fatigue in a season with the most innings pitched he's ever pitched, and by far the most he's thrown since 2009.
With Monday's abbreviated start, Anderson has now thrown fewer than five innings in three of his last four starts, and allowed five runs or more in each of those.
As for Wood, a trade deadline acquisition intended to shore up the rotation, his 4.35 ERA with the Dodgers is a full run higher than his career mark. And over his final five starts, his ERA ballooned to an unsightly 5.72.
All of which is why Mattingly, in a moment of candor earlier Monday, responded to a reporter asking him who his his Game 4 starter would be and why by saying, "Kershaw. Do you have to explain that one?"
And when Mets manager Terry Collins was asked who he'd rather face in Game 4, Kershaw or Wood, Collins responded, laughing, "Would I have any preference? Yeah. I got a preference."
That's how big the gap is between Kershaw/Greinke and everybody else the Dodgers have right now, and it's once again a problem for Don Mattingly's team.
Jimmy Rollins did point out that while Kershaw and Greinke combined for 35 wins this season, they didn't do it alone.
"Nah, Kershaw and Greinke, they didn't go out and win 90 games by themselves," Rollins said. "Everybody had to do their job. Us on the offense, the other starting pitchers when they had their chance. As it lines up now, we need Kershaw tomorrow, to get it back to L.A., and then Greinke."
But then comes a tall task against the Cubs or Cardinals, even if Kershaw and Greinke are enough to propel them past the Mets, who have a pretty strong ace in Jacob deGrom lined up for Game 5 should the series get that far.
Asked if the Dodgers needed someone else to step up should the team advance, Rollins didn't offer a vote of confidence for Anderson or Wood.
"We're only worried about tomorrow," Rollins said. "We can only think about what's ahead of us, and right now that's needing a win to go back to L.A."
On a night the Dodgers scored seven runs, that speaks volumes.
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