What happened to the Dodgers' pitching? Inside the team's historic struggles.
In their 66 years of playing baseball in Los Angeles, the Dodgers have never fielded a pitching staff with numbers this bad.
Not in their early Southern California years, when their makeshift home at the Coliseum measured just 250 feet to straightaway left.
Not in the doldrums of the 1990s and early 2000s, when the team failed to win a playoff game over a 15-year stretch.
Even Frank McCourt's cash-strapped squads were able to maintain the franchise's long-established legacy of pitching excellence, always remaining at least competitive on the mound.
This season, however, the club has found itself in uncharted territory. After leading the majors in earned-run average each of the last four seasons, they're stunningly 25th out of 30 teams in MLB this season, owning a 4.66 mark that would be the highest in franchise history since 1944.
As a result, the Dodgers are struggling in ways they rarely have during the Guggenheim Baseball-Andrew Friedman-Dave Roberts era. They've lost 18 of their last 30 games. They are in third place in the NL West after being swept by the San Francisco Giants this weekend.
