Dodgers News: Dave Roberts Recent Comments Spell Bad News for Struggling Noah Syndergaard
Dodgers RHP Noah Syndergaard is struggling. To be fair, he's been struggling all year, but a season's worth of struggles culminated in one of his worst performances of 2023, a three-inning, six-earned-run beatdown in which he gave up a 2-0 lead and a 6-2 lead in an eventual 8-6 Dodgers loss on Wednesday night.
His ERA inflated to an abysmal 7.16 on the year, and he's proving that, as he put it after the game, he's just "not really getting big league hitters out."
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts spoke about Syndergaard's struggles after the game, too, and had some interesting things to say about what his pitcher has been dealing with.
"He's going through it. He's been going through it all year," Roberts said. "It's just not working. I know that there's things with that blister that he's had to deal with that he certainly doesn't want to make excuses for. I know that there was a fingernail break tonight that he's not gonna make excuses for. And he understands it's about performance."
Roberts then got even more candid about Syndergaard's struggles, and hinted at a potential stint on the injured list in his future.
"It might be an opportunity to give him a chance to, kind of, get this finger thing taken care of. A reset. Because it's certainly, in my opinion, impeding performance."
Like Roberts said, they don't want to make excuses, but the Dodgers just cannot keep throwing him out there every fifth day. So if they don't want to designate him for assignment — and it definitely sounds like they don't want to do that — they can place him on the injured list and let him try to get a reset there.
Whether the blister and broken fingernail actually require an IL stint, or whether this is more for just a mental reset, it's obviously the right thing to do. Syndergaard is not in a place where he can be trusted to face big league hitting, and he's done much more harm than good for the Dodgers this season.
So, it sounds like Syndergaard is likely to end up on the injured list in the coming days, and we'll see how long he ultimately ends up staying there.
It remains to be seen if we see him again this season, but the Dodgers are probably hoping a short break and a few adjustments help him get back on track.
