Gavin Stone providing quality innings in a time of uncertainty for Dodgers pitching (2024)

The calendar will soon turn from August to September, and though the Dodgers have baseball’s best record following Sunday’s 3-1 victory over Tampa Bay before a sellout crowd of 52,464 in Chavez Ravine, their rotation is filled with enough questions to raise serious doubts about their championship worthiness.

Will ace Tyler Glasnow (elbow) and Yoshinobu Yamamoto (shoulder) return from injuries in time to front a playoff pitching staff? Can Clayton Kershaw and Walker Buehler, both struggling in returns from major surgeries, be counted on down the stretch? Will the inconsistent Bobby Miller regain his 2023 rookie form?

In Gavin Stone, the Dodgers may have found at least one answer.

The rookie right-hander gave up one run and three hits in seven strong innings Sunday, striking out seven, walking two and making only one glaring mistake, grooving a first-pitch sinker that Jonny DeLuca lined over the left-center field wall for a score-tying solo home run to lead off the seventh.

“When he’s getting strike one, he’s efficient, getting swing-and-miss, soft contact, that’s who he is, who we’ve come to know and appreciate, and we needed every bit of it today,” manager Dave Roberts said of Stone. “Gavin has done a good job kind of going through the highs, some lows, and trying to reset.”

Stone struggled during a five-week stretch from early July to early August, going 0-3 with a 6.91 ERA in six starts in which he yielded 45 hits, including eight homers, in 27 ⅓ innings.

Mookie Betts hits a two-run home run in the eighth inning against the Rays on Sunday.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

But Stone appears to have regained his dominant first-half form, giving up only two earned runs and eight hits, two of them homers, in 19 innings of his last three starts in which he has struck out 23 and walked four to lower his ERA from 3.71 on Aug. 7 to 3.33.

“I don’t know the answer,” Roberts said, when asked how Stone, who went 9-2 with a 2.73 ERA in his first 15 starts this season, could be so bad for a month. “I don’t know if some of it was fatigue or if it was a little bit of you’re pushing to be an All-Star. I don’t know if some of it is the league making adjustments on him.

“But I know that he believes his stuff plays, and when he can get ahead and mix and match, keep guys off balance, he can still strike guys out and still go deep in games.”

Stone did not figure in the decision because the Dodgers broke a 1-1 tie in the eighth when Shohei Ohtani was hit on the inside of the left forearm by a 92-mph sinker from left-hander Richard Lovelady and Mookie Betts lined a first-pitch slider over the left-center field wall for a two-run homer and a 3-1 lead. X-rays on Ohtani’s forearm were negative.

Shohei Ohtani holds his wrist after getting hit by a pitch in the eighth inning against the Rays on Sunday.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

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The Dodgers improved to 78-53 on the season and maintained their three-game National League West lead over Arizona and a 4 ½-game lead over San Diego.

Stone retired the first 10 batters of the game before giving up a one-out single to Brandon Lowe in the fourth, but he got both Junior Caminero and Josh Lowe to pop out to first to end the inning.

Stone walked two in the fifth, including DeLuca to open the inning, but he escaped damage with the help of Kiké Hernández, who was making only his sixth start of the season in center field.

Ben Rortvedt followed DeLuca’s walk with a drive to the gap in left-center, but Hernández ran the ball down and made a lunging catch before crashing into the wall for the first out, most likely saving a run. José Caballero lined out to third base, Taylor Walls walked, and Jose Siri grounded out to first base to end the inning.

“I had a pretty good read off the bat, and I was trying to create an angle where the ball wouldn’t get in the sun for me,” Hernández said of his catch in the gap. “At that point, I was just trying to feel the warning track, feel the ball and throw the glove out there at an angle where I was going to be able to catch the ball, and it wasn’t going to come out when I hit the wall.”

Hernández then led off the bottom of the fifth by lining an 88-mph cut-fastball from Rays left-hander Jacob Lopez over the wall in left-center for his ninth home run of the season and a 1-0 Dodgers lead.

Caminero doubled off the left-field wall with two outs in the sixth, but Stone struck out Josh Lowe swinging with an 88-mph changeup to end the inning.

Stone tried to get ahead of DeLuca with a first-pitch, 93-mph sinker in the seventh, but DeLuca pounced on it, sending a 380-foot liner over the wall in left-center for his fourth homer of the season and a 1-1 tie.

Kiké Hernández rounds second base after hitting a solo home run in the fifth inning against the Rays on Sunday.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

“I just threw it over the middle of the plate, and he put a good swing on a pitch to hit,” said Stone, who threw 53 of his 80 pitches for strikes and induced 13 swinging strikes. “After you give up a home run like that, you just gotta refocus and get back in the zone.”

Blake Treinen threw a scoreless eighth inning for the Dodgers, and left-hander Anthony Banda added a scoreless ninth for his second save, blowing a 98-mph fastball by Caballero to end the game.

It’s far too soon to be formulating a playoff rotation, and there are too many variables that could alter the Dodgers’ pitching plans heading into October, but if Stone is called upon to pitch in the postseason for the first time, Roberts believes the 25-year-old will be up to the task.

“I think if he were to be in that position, I think he would thrive,” Roberts said. “I think he’s got a good heartbeat. He doesn’t scare off. He has the ability to command the baseball. I don’t think emotions would get to him. We’re evaluating who the best 26 players are, and right now, he’s earning that right.”

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