The Los Angeles Dodgers have been doing their best to stay in the lead in the National League West Division. Entering Tuesday night's games, they are one game up on the San Diego Padres and, if they don't watch out, the San Francisco Giants might give them trouble.
Sure, the Giants are further back than the Padres and need pretty much a miracle for a division title. Still, the Dodgers should not count their chickens before they're hatched, so to speak.
The Dodgers have had trouble getting games into the win column recently, mostly due to a lack of closing ability from their bullpen. Tanner Scott? Don't talk to Dodgers fans about him. Blake Treinen? He's struggled since coming back from an injury.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has had to lean on a few young arms out in the bullpen to make things work. They can have Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, and Mookie Betts hit the cover off the baseball, but the bullpen has been a weak spot.
In the latest MLB Power Rankings sent out every week from The Athletic, the Dodgers have slipped five spots from No. 2 to No. 7. Andy McCullough of The Athletic offers some perspective on the Dodgers' current situation.
"It’s never a good sign when your $72 million reliever is saying things like 'Baseball hates me right now,' but that was Tanner Scott on Friday night after serving up a walk-off homer," McCullough wrote. "(Editor's note: Things did not go any better for Scott on Monday night.)
"And that wasn’t even the team’s worst loss of the weekend," McCullough wrote. "The Dodgers hit a new low the next evening, when Blake Treinen and Scott combined to blow a game in which Yoshinobu Yamamoto lost a no-hitter with two outs in the ninth.
"Manager Dave Roberts likes to establish a trust tree of relievers heading into the postseason," McCullough wrote. "The team has a month to figure out which branch Scott, who was so devastating in relief for San Diego last October, will reside."
Talk about some bad news for the Dodgers. They desperately need Treinen and Scott to deliver in their late-inning situations. If they can't do it, then the Dodgers might - just might - find themselves falling into an NL Wild Card spot or, heaven forbid, out of the playoffs.
The clock is ticking.