Dodgers turn around and head East after quick 3-game homestand
LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers were in New York City last Thursday. They will be back there this Friday.
It’s not ideal, but the Dodgers are trying to take the unusual stretch of travel that bookends this past weekend’s three-game homestand against the Colorado Rockies in stride.
“Is it a little weird going back to New York a couple days (after being there)? I think it’s a little weird, but what are you gonna do? You just gotta go and keep going,” catcher Austin Barnes said.
The upcoming six-game stretch, which starts Tuesday with three contests at the Pittsburgh Pirates before facing the New York Yankees for three anticipated outings over the weekend, comes after the Dodgers wrapped up another six-game road trip last week.
“My look at it is there’s no point in putting bad energy into it,” Barnes said. “We can’t change the schedule, it is what it is. Obviously we have it pretty good as major league baseball players. Travel, even though it wears on your body a little bit, it’s tough but it’s part of the job.”
The causes of this particular anomaly, one manager Dave Roberts couldn’t recall having experienced before in his time as a player or skipper, can likely be attributed to a combination of balanced scheduling and television.
Introduced in 2023 to have every MLB team play each of the other 29 clubs at least once in the regular season, balanced scheduling had the added effect of creating more standout matchups for the league’s broadcast partners.
The Dodgers visiting the Yankees certainly qualifies, with Saturday’s game set to air nationally on Fox and Sunday night’s finale scheduled for ESPN.
One tradeoff comes in having players deal with that extra bit of travel. For those based on the West Coast, it can mean preparing for the abrupt change moving from Pacific Time to Eastern or vice versa.
“Your body, it takes a little bit to adapt back and forth, but we’ve been doing it for a while,” Barnes said.
Barnes said the Dodgers’ sports scientists and training staff advise players on the importance of sleep, given its importance in physical conditioning and recovery.
That is a marked change from Roberts’ playing days.
“We had a good time. We didn’t sleep a whole lot,” Roberts said, chuckling. “But now, it’s rest, recovery, diet, you know. That’s another reason I just think that the athletes are better than they’ve ever been. There’s just a lot more information.”
Even with an awareness of the necessity of sleep, circumstances can conspire to rob players of a night’s rest. That was the case coming back from New York last week when weather and mechanical issues prevented the team from leaving on Wednesday night as scheduled.
The delays meant the flight crew had to time out, leaving the Dodgers on the tarmac waiting for replacements to arrive. They did not take off until 5:30 a.m. EDT on Thursday, all this after having to play three games against the Mets in two days after the opener was rained out, leading to a doubleheader on Tuesday.
“I think we were on that plane longer than we were on the plane to Korea, so it was interesting,” Barnes said, referring to the season opener in Seoul, South Korea in March. “That’s out of our control, really, so there’s nothing we could do about it, so I think a lot of guys just made the best of it.”
The Dodgers couldn’t overcome their body clocks in a 4-1 loss to Colorado on Friday. Their bats were noticeably sluggish for most of the game, which players and Roberts later attributed to the difficult adjustment coming back home.
The Dodgers fared much better the rest of the weekend, rebounding with a 4-1 win on Saturday and a 4-0 shutout on Sunday.
Momentum from winning five of their past six won’t be the only thing they can take with them back out on the road. Closer Evan Phillips returned from a strained right hamstring on Saturday, getting the save in his first game since May 3.
Phillips is perfect in nine save opportunities this season, and his return strengthens what has been a makeshift bullpen.
“I think when our entire staff is healthy, we’re going to be in a really great position to win,” Phillips said. “I think we still have a lot of major pieces missing, we’re waiting on Joe Kelly and Ryan Brasier. Just to picture that bullpen when that time comes will be a lot of fun.”
Roberts sees a more amenable path ahead, even with the upcoming travel.
“We have an off day heading back to the East Coast, and then six days later we get another off day, so the schedule going forward is really going to be manageable,” Roberts said. “So it’s good to see that as far as the (upcoming) dates, the days off, the toughest part is essentially behind us.”
UP NEXT
Dodgers (RHP Tyler Glasnow, 6-3, 3.04 ERA) at Pirates (RHP Jared Jones, 3-5, 3.55 ERA), Tuesday, 3:40 p.m., SportsNet LA, 570 AM