ST. LOUIS — The Dodgers’ offense hasn’t offered its pitchers much support recently. Justin Wrobleski hasn’t needed much.
Wrobleski continued to make himself at home in the Dodgers’ starting rotation on Sunday afternoon, holding the St. Louis Cardinals scoreless for six innings as the Dodgers snapped their four-game losing streak with a 4-1 victory.
“I mean, offensively we just haven’t been very good the last week. Just call a spade a spade sometimes. There’s no way to sugarcoat it. We just haven’t been very good, and we gotta be better,” first baseman Freddie Freeman said after the Dodgers avoided being swept in St. Louis. “Luckily, Wrobo, our starting pitching has been amazing. They deserve a lot more than they’ve gotten over the last two weeks. So it’s on us to start scoring some more runs.”
Since joining the rotation as the sixth starter at the beginning of April, Wrobleski has been impeccable. He has allowed just two runs in 32 innings (an 0.56 ERA) while holding batters to a .190 average (22 for 116) with just four extra-base hits (all doubles).
The Dodgers have won all five of his starts.
“I think I’m doing a good job of understanding who I am, understanding the game and where we’re at, understanding the hitter and the situation,” Wrobleski said. “Rush (catcher Dalton Rushing) and I did a good job of navigating that today. It’s the culmination of a lot of things, a lot of stuff we’ve been working on and continuing to harp on those things that make me good.”
Sunday’s start fit the template Wrobleski has established – throw strikes, work fast and don’t be afraid of contact. He didn’t strike out a batter (and has just 13 strikeouts in his five starts), had just four swings-and-misses on 44 swings and got through his six innings on a compact 83 pitches.
“I had a lot of two-strike counts and they kept putting it in play,” Wrobleski said. “I was, ‘Alright, I’ll take the out.’ I’m trying to decipher where I need to go to get that miss. But a lot of times, guys know I’m in the (strike) zone. I think there was probably three or four good swings today. Most of the other swings I don’t think I’d say they were on them.
“Some days you’re not going to get strikeouts. Some months you’re not going to get strikeouts. Some days you’re going to get a lot. It’s just kind of the ebbs and flows of the game. Yeah, I notice. Joking with Mark (Prior), I was, ‘Maybe some time today they’re going to swing and miss with two strikes.’ It’s funny. Just keep moving forward and I’m sure the strikeouts will come.”
The modern take on the game places a high value on swing-and-miss. But Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Wrobleski’s success with or without it is sustainable because “he is very understanding of, the most important thing is to get outs.”
“You’re either going to chase strikeouts and work behind and nibble and not be efficient, go shorter in games, or you’re going to keep going after guys and getting outs,” Roberts said. “And I think for me, just to kind of push back on the unlucky or the lucky part of things, there’s a lot of soft contact, there’s a lot of lazy fly balls, soft grounders, pop-ups and things like that. So is he going to have a 1.00 (ERA) at the end of the day? Probably not. But I still think he’s done a great job as a starting pitcher for us.”
It wasn’t without traffic on Sunday. The Cardinals put runners at the corners with two outs in the second inning but Rushing threw Nathan Church out trying to steal second base to end that inning.
Wrobleski made his own trouble in the third inning, again putting two runners on with two outs. This time, it was his error while covering first base and a walk that created a scoring opportunity for the Cardinals. Wrobleski took it away when he got Jordan Walker to ground out.
Again in the fourth, Wrobleski retired the first two batters then put two on. Back-to-back singles by Jose Fermin and Church were rendered harmless when Pedro Pages flew out to left field.
“I prepare a lot off the field, understanding hitters, doing scouting work,” Wrobleski said. “Mark and Connor (McGuinness) and Danny (Lehmann) and the catchers do a great job of constructing a gameplan. The gameplan sometimes is not super elaborate. But it’s helpful having that clarity going into a start and just going out and trying to execute with that plan being the main focus.
“It’s going out and doing the things that I know equate to success at this level and doing them over and over.”
Wrobleski did most of his work against the Cardinals with a lead – the Dodgers’ first since Monday.
Kyle Tucker led off the second inning with a double. Max Muncy worked a walk against Cardinals starter Dustin May to put two runners on with no outs.
After Rushing struck out, Andy Pages doubled to left, driving in Tucker. Hyeseong Kim followed with a ground ball through the right side for an RBI single.
With runners at the corners, Alex Freeland bounced into a double play – bringing back a frustrating piece of Saturday’s loss. The Dodgers hit into four double plays in the first five innings on Saturday. Sunday, it was three double plays in the first four innings and four total.
They got to May again in the fifth inning, though, when Kim led off with a single, moved to second on a ground out and scored on a two-out RBI single by Freeman.
It was the first time since Monday’s walk-off win over the Miami Marlins that the Dodgers managed to push across a third run in a game.
The Cardinals cut into the 3-0 lead with a run in the eighth inning off Will Klein. Klein walked Jordan Walker with two outs and Walker scored from first on Alec Burleson’s single to center field, bobbled by Andy Pages.
But the Dodgers matched it in the ninth on Alex Call’s pinch-hit RBI single, giving Tanner Scott a little more margin for error. He closed it out with a 1-2-3 ninth.
“We’ve been getting really good pitching from the starters and the guys in the ’pen. We are making life a little more difficult, not putting up a crooked number here or there,” Roberts said. “But it’s important that you feel you have a chance to win every day.”
