Justin Wrobleski didn’t suffer many growing pains in his major league debut Sunday afternoon.
However, the few lessons he learned proved costly in the Dodgers’ 9-2 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers at Dodger Stadium.
Called up after just two career Triple-A appearances for a starting rotation spot, the 23-year-old Wrobleski made only two real errors.
The only problem: they both left the yard.
In the fourth inning, Wrobleski hit a slider that former NL MVP Christian Yelich crushed to center field for a two-run homer. In the fifth, Wrobleski was penalized for catching the plate too much again, throwing a cutter fastball to center that veteran catcher Eric Haase hit for another two-run homer.
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That was enough offense for the Brewers (53-39), who avoided a weekend sweep at Chavez Ravine by limiting the Dodgers’ lineup to one of nine with runners in scoring position and leaving 11 men on base.
Three weeks ago, Wrobleski was a rising, if not very well-known, name in the Dodgers’ minor league system.
Selected in the 11th round of the 2021 draft out of Oklahoma State, the left-hander impressed with a 2.90 ERA in High-A last season, then went 5-2 with a 3.06 ERA in 13 starts at Double-A to start this year.
That production earned Wrobleski, the No. 13 prospect in the Dodgers system according to MLB Pipeline, a promotion late last month to Triple-A Oklahoma City, where he allowed five runs in 101/3 innings over two starts the past two weeks.
Then, when the Dodgers decided to give the rest of their rotation an extra day of rest to finish out this six-game homestand, the team turned to Wrobleski to fill the void on Sunday, making him just the second starting pitching prospect to debut for the club this year (joining Landon Knack) and the eighth in the past three years overall.
Wrobleski is expected to be one of several young arms the Dodgers will rely on for depth during the second half of the season.
The club’s Triple-A rotation also features River Ryan (its No. 4 overall prospect) and Kyle Hurt (who is its No. 5 prospect but hasn’t pitched since leaving a game with a trainer earlier this week).
While the Dodgers could still use another front-line pitcher to make up for the loss of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who was also on an All-Star path before suffering a rotator cuff strain last month, the team’s young pitching lineup has alleviated their need for bottom-of-the-rotation additions heading into MLB’s July 30 trade deadline.
Instead, as Sunday’s lackluster offensive performance (a two-run homer by Chris Taylor was the Dodgers’ only offense) demonstrated once again, another bat might be a more pressing need for the club right now.
Clayton Kershaw launches a simulation game
Clayton Kershaw’s recovery process from off-season shoulder surgery was back on track as the left-hander pitched two innings in a simulated game at Dodger Stadium on Sunday morning.
This was the first time Kershaw faced live hits since reporting soreness in his shoulder following a rehab outing with Class-A Rancho Cucamonga last month.
Kershaw stopped throwing for about a week after that, during which time he underwent an MRI exam that revealed no new damage to his shoulder, as well as injections to help alleviate the pain.
This week, he started playing ball again. After Sunday’s outing, he should be ready to resume his rehab stint in the minor leagues next week, too, though manager Dave Roberts said he didn’t know exactly when or with which affiliate that next outing will take place.
“I thought Clayton was good,” Roberts said of Kershaw’s performance Sunday, in which he faced fellow major leaguers Gavin Lux, James Outman and Cavan Biggio, as well as a pair of minor league hitters. “We got what we wanted to get done.”
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
