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News Analysis: Was Dodgers’ poor homestand just a bad week, or sign of potential trouble ahead?

Was it just a bad week, or something more ominous?

 

Near the end of the Dodgers’ recent — and turbulent — 3-6 homestand, in which the team lost three straight series to three non-playoff teams from last year, manager Dave Roberts responded to that question with an unequivocal answer.

 

“I think it’s just a bad week,” Roberts declared. “I really do.”

 

The reality, however, seems a bit more complicated. The Dodgers, as the last nine games showed, don’t look as invincible as many once thought.

 

Granted, over the course of a 162-game season, every team — even ones such as the Dodgers with their $300-million payroll — will encounter inevitable lulls. Given the club’s lengthy list of injuries and sizable cast of underperformers, maybe it shouldn’t be a shock they are only 13-11 after almost a month.

“If we just play better baseball, we’re going to win,” said first baseman Freddie Freeman, whose weeklong slump to start the homestand represented one of several seemingly isolated issues bound to correct itself with time.

“Our team is way too good,” Freeman added. “I think we all know that. And I think we’re going to be just fine soon.”

 

The Dodgers, though, were designed to be much more than “just fine” this year. After spending $1.4 billion in the offseason, and making star acquisitions in Shohei Ohtani, Tyler Glasnow and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the anticipation surrounding this season’s club was palpable. The franchise’s already sky-high expectations ascended to stratospheric levels.

 

It didn’t mean the team entered the year free of doubts. From the start of spring training, their makeshift defense, banged-up bullpen and roster depth both at the plate and on the mound loomed as potential stumbling blocks.

 

None of those concerns, though, were expected to become major impediments.

 

And during the Dodgers’ 10-4 start, the impact of such weaknesses seemed rather mild, even as the team played only three of four “complete games” in Roberts’ estimation.