Ups and downs: Snapshots are not real life

By Jon Weisman

When looking at a team whose fortunes are sinking, people are fond of moralizing and other snap judgments. If a team isn’t winning, it must not be trying. Or the team is just not good.

It takes backbone to see streaks as an exaggeration of reality, rather than a reflection of reality, even though almost by definition, streaks tend to be unusual.

We understand that batting averages and ERAs and every other statistic will fluctuate from week to week, month to month. Not one .333 hitter actually goes 1 for 3 in every game. Yet somehow, winning teams are expected to always be winning.

Having lost six of their past eight since matching a season-high five games over .500 on May 3, the Dodgers are drawing catcalls. It’s part of the game, I suppose. But we don’t know who the real Dodgers are.

Are they the team that started 9-4? The team that then went 9-9? Or the team that is most recently 2-6? Are they even the team that is 20-19 overall this season?

We have no idea. We can guess, but we don’t know.

Someone recently commented, for example, that the Dodgers are a reflection of their manager. If that’s so, then their manager has been going through a series of costume changes in front of the mirror.

Here’s a comparison for you …

During the Dodgers’ instantly legendary 42-8 run last year, the bullpen pitch 133 1/3 innings with a 2.23 ERA, and allowed only eight inherited runners to score in those 50 games. It was, as much as any you’ll ever see, a shutdown bullpen.

So far in 2014, Dodger relievers have pitched 134 2/3 innings, almost exactly the number as they threw during the 42-8 stretch (though in noticeably fewer games). This time around, the bullpen has allowed a 3.94 ERA and 14 inherited runners to score. That’s not quite twice as much damage, but it’s close enough.

Last year, Dodger relievers only took 24 losses in 162 games. This year, Dodger relievers have already been charged with 11 losses in 39 games.

Is this significant, or an aberration? If last year’s bullpen didn’t continue to perform as well as it had been, should we assume this year’s will continue to be so challenged?

One other note on the 2014 relievers: They have faced 277 batters with the bases empty, and walked or hit 35 of them. In other words, 13 percent of the batters the Dodger bullpen has faced with nobody on, when the worst thing that could happen would be a solo home run, has gotten a free pass to first base. That rate is 60 percent higher than the MLB average in 2014. (It’s no coincidence, by the way, that Brandon League’s resurgence is accompanied by the fact that he has the best rate on the staff in this category: 40 batters with the bases empty, one walk).

It’s also a failing that, as failings go, seems highly correctable.

Will the Dodger bullpen struggle this much all year? We have no idea.

We do know that the Dodgers have a 1-5 record when tied after seven or eight innings. A 3-6 record in one-run games. A 3-7 record in extra innings. Against the Giants alone, the Dodgers are 0-3 in extras. Reverse that number, and the Dodgers would be 23-16 and in first place in the National League West.

Yeah, changing the past is easy to say and impossible to do. Maybe the recent losses are no accident. But really, really, we are still early enough in the season where we just don’t know.