Welcome to The California Post’s weekly Dodgers recap, where baseball writers Dylan Hernández and Jack Harris review the week that was, hand out very official awards and take stock of the state of the season.
For the last three weeks, opportunities had been plentiful for some previously part-time players in the Dodgers’ lineup.
At second base, Miguel Rojas and Alex Freeland have split at-bats in a platoon. In left field, there’s been a similar tag team of Alex Call and Ryan Ward.
For the most part, the math has been simple. Against left-handed pitchers, the right-handed-hitting Rojas and Call play. Against righties, the left-handed Ward and switch-hitting Freeland get the nod.
The results have been somewhat mixed, from Ward’s impressive .895 OPS to Rojas’ resurgent .280 batting average to Call’s sudden 8-for-38 slump going back to May 28 — the point at which injuries to Kiké Hernández and Teoscar Hernández created the new arrangement.
But without other options, each of their roles were steady.
Now, with Tommy Edman back, playing time will be at a premium again.
While Edman made his long-awaited return from offseason ankle surgery at third base on Wednesday (filling in for Max Muncy on a scheduled day off), most of the switch-hitting utilityman’s starts figure to come at second base or left field.
That means, between Rojas, Freeland, Call and Ward, at-bats will inevitably begin to go down.
How exactly the pie will be split remains to be seen. Manager Dave Roberts noted the team “feels really good” about playing Edman against left-handed pitchers (bad news for Rojas and Call). Then again, his best position is likely at second base (where Freeland, who is hitting .228, has gotten most of the starts this year).
These are good problems for the Dodgers to have, of course, and will only continue as the Hernándezes eventually return to health (Teoscar is scheduled to begin a rehab assignment this week).
But it means someone will wind up getting the short end of the straw. It will be one of the bigger decisions facing Roberts in the coming days and weeks.
Max Muncy (4-for-16, 2 home runs, 4 RBIs this week; .265 average, 16 home runs, 28 RBIs, .887 OPS this season)
Muncy was last an All-Star in 2021. You’d be forgiven for thinking he’d never be one again.
But this week, amid the 35-year-old slugger’s renaissance season, there was Muncy at the top of fan balloting for the Midsummer Classic, deservedly leading all third basemen in the National League in search of his third career All-Star selection.
Muncy’s recent play has epitomized how he got there. This week, he hit two home runs, drew more walks than strikeouts and impressed in particular with a glove that now has him ranked sixth among big-league third basemen in defensive runs saved.
Put it all together and only the Tigers’ Kevin McGonigle has been more valuable at the position than Muncy this year (slightly topping him in Fangraphs WAR 3.1 to 2.8).
An All-Star trip to Philadelphia almost certainly awaits.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto (carried perfect game into eighth inning and no-hitter into ninth; 7-4 record, 2.52 ERA this season)
We’d be remiss not to recognize Yamamoto’s latest brush with history here — or to point out, he might be in the Cy Young conversation as well this season.
So far, all of the Cy Young chatter around the Dodgers has focused on Shohei Ohtani. But with the two-way star posting back-to-back bumpy outings that have knocked him out of the majors’ ERA lead (his 1.47 ERA now trails Jacob Misiorowski’s stellar 1.34 mark), Yamamoto is starting to look like an increasingly equal award threat.
Unlike the still-not-qualified Ohtani, Yamamoto does not have workload questions, ranking in the top 10 of the National League in innings pitched. And since a four-start stretch over late April and early May in which he had an ERA above 5.00, the reigning World Series MVP has gotten back in form, allowing just four earned runs in 35 ⅔ innings (a 1.01 ERA) over his last four starts.
Granted, no one is likely catching Misiorowski or Cristopher Sanchez, who has a 1.82 ERA while averaging an NL-best 6.6 innings per start.
But if someone from the Dodgers can, Ohtani is no longer the only option. Yamamoto is heating up, with no signs of stopping soon.
Cam Leiter (2 starts, 5.2 innings, 14 strikeouts this week; 2.60 ERA this season with Single-A Ontario)
Leiter faced 23 batters over two starts in the last week and struck out 14 of them —flashing the potential that prompted the Dodgers to take him in the second round of last year’s draft out of Florida State.
At the time, Leiter’s selection was seen as somewhat of a risk, after he missed all of 2025 with shoulder surgery.
However, the right-hander has big-league lineage in his family, as the nephew of former big-league pitchers Al and Mark Leiter, and the cousin of current Athletics pitcher Mark Leiter Jr. and Rangers pitcher Jack Leiter.
He had also showcased swing-and-miss in college, when he struck out 56 batters in 35 innings in 2024.
That has translated this season, with Leiter’s rate of 15 strikeouts per nine innings ranking second in the Single-A California League among pitchers with 20 innings.
(Where we identify a potential Dodgers’ future acquisition — sometimes far-fetched, sometimes not)
Kenley Jansen, Tigers (ETA: August)
Imagine: The bullpen gates swing open at Uniqlo Field and “California Love” starts playing over the stadium’s sound system.
Why not?
Because the 38-year-old Jansen doesn’t have great numbers this season — he has a 4.50 ERA in 19 games — he could be an inexpensive lottery ticket for the Dodgers, who could use a couple of extra arms in the bullpen. The Tigers would probably be content with just unloading what remains of Jansen’s one-year, $11 million deal.
Jansen’s trademark sinker has averaged 92.5 mph this season, but that’s more or less where it’s been in recent years, including in 2022 when he led the National League in saves with the Braves. Jansen is averaging 11.8 strikeouts per nine innings, his best since that 2022 season.
Jansen is 17 saves short of 500 in his career. The Dodgers wouldn’t be able to help him in that department, as Edwin Diaz should be back by the time they could make a deal for Jansen, but the guess here is that he would exchange that for an opportunity to win a World Series he never won in Los Angeles.
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