Why Los Angeles is losing, falling in NL West race to Padres

Think back to the morning of the Fourth of July. Our nation’s birthday. Quintessential America. Barbecues. Burgers. Fireworks. Everything as you expect, including the Dodgers with the best record in baseball.

Now that seems like a long time ago. Since then, the Dodgers have been as sorry as a sack of soggy charcoal briquettes: 12–21. Only the Nationals and the Rays have been worse.

Wait, the Dodgers? The $391 million payroll Dodgers? The same Dodgers who gobbled up so many high-profile free agents last winter we started asking, “Are the Dodgers good for baseball?”

Eight months later, now we’re asking, “Will the Dodgers ever play good baseball?”

They better figure it out quickly. Starting tonight, the Dodgers play six of their next 10 games against the smoking hot, deadline-fortified, first-place San Diego Padres.

What is wrong with the Dodgers? It’s time to dig in.

All teams go through valleys. At some point in June, the Dodgers, Cubs, Mets, Astros and Yankees all had leads as big as 5 1/2 games. All gone.

But slumps this deep are rare for the Dodgers. In the past 30 years, here are the only seasons in which the Dodgers hit .236 and lost at least 21 games in a 33-game span:

Dodgers Seasons with 33-Game Span With 21+ Losses and Hitting .236 or Worse (Wild Card Era)

I know you optimistic Dodger fans are thinking: “Hey, we went through this in 2017 and still won the pennant.”

But the problems this year go deeper than 33 games. Let’s continue.

This is shocking news.

What is defensive efficiency? It’s the measurement of how often a team turns batted balls into outs. I like this measurement because it does not isolate defense but reflects the unbreakable marriage between pitching and defense. A pitching staff that gets weak contact, for instance, makes the job easier for the defense.

This has been Andrew Friedman’s secret sauce. You can talk all you want about the Dodgers’ money, technology, scouting, international footprint, annoying speaker system at Dodger Stadium, whatever … turning batted balls into outs is what they do best under Friedman.

No more. Their amazing six-year year run of elite pitching combined with elite defense is over.

Dodgers MLB Rank in Defensive Efficiency

Dodgers pitchers allow the same average exit velocity this year as Rockies pitchers.

It continues an erosion of generating soft contact. Check out this decline.

Dodgers Exit Velocity Allowed

And of the Dodgers’ seven positions behind the pitcher, five of them rate average or worse, according to Outs Above Average (OAA).

Dodgers Weakest Defensive Positions by Outs Above Average (OAA)

The Dodgers in recent years have redefined starter workloads. They pitch their starters with more rest and get them out quicker than any other team. They have taken this philosophy to a new extreme.

Dodgers Starters

The result is that because of injuries and workload management none of their starters are in top form. Maybe they will be, come October.

Manager Dave Roberts does not have a clear path to lock down games. This ranking is damning: the Dodgers and Yankees rank among non-contenders as allowing the highest OPS in high leverage spots.

Highest OPS Allowed in High Leverage, 2025

So, who does Roberts trust? Here are his most used pitchers in high leverage:

Most Batters Faced in High Leverage, Dodgers 2025

Three years ago, the Dodgers adopted a paradigm shift. That year they went 51–21 in the second half to win 111 games, a franchise record. They were in the business of building superteams and putting the gas pedal to the floor to get the No. 1 seed.

What it got them was a first-round exit. The Padres sent the superteam home quickly. They held them to 12 runs and a .227 batting average in four games.

The Dodgers learned a lesson. No more maxing out. The north star became workload management. Win enough games to get to the postseason but make sure you get there with your pitchers healthy and with gas in the tank.

It worked last year, barely. Gavin Stone, who broke down, led the staff with 140 innings. But when Walker Buehler got the last out of the World Series, Kiké Hernandez, a position player, would have been the next pitcher if the Yankees scored the tying run.

This year feels like even more of a risk of prepping for October, not grinding toward it. The Dodgers are the oldest team in baseball. They don’t turn batted balls into outs like they used to. And they don’t have the bullpen depth to withstand planned, abbreviated starts.

More than any other team, the Dodgers play the long game. It may work again. But two things have changed.

Now the Dodgers are playing from behind.

And the Padres, fortified by the trade deadline, are lighting it up like it’s the Fourth of July.

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