This year feels slightly different in one area for the Dodgers. In the last couple years, the Dodgers have had an excess of starting pitchers. Not necessarily pitchers that were top-of-the-line, but pitchers they thought maybe could help them throughout the year. They knew they had issues, and they were just hoping for the best. But this year there doesn’t seem to be a true excess of pitching waiting in the wings to step up if one or two pitchers happen to go down.
And the Dodgers have had a lot of pitching go down. Mostly because they were signing guys with known history of injury, but even Clayton Kershaw has had to deal with back issues each of the last few seasons.