We’ve all had them – ‘just one of those days.’ It’s one of those things in the universe that just happens and often times cannot be explained. We simply accept them and move on. But when ‘just one of those days’ becomes two of those days or three of those days (and so on), there might be more a little more to it than how the planets are aligned.

The Dodgers recently had ‘just one of those days.’ It was last Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium when they were blown out by the Miami Marlins 13-3 in a game that saw left-hander Paul Maholm completely melt down, allowing 10 runs in only 3.2 innings. Granted, five of those runs were unearned and the result of a couple of costly Dodger errors or misplayed balls, but even the five earned runs that Maholm allowed would have been enough to beat the Dodgers. Although it was fun to see Dodgers manager Don Mattingly bring in back-up catcher Drew Butera to pitch the 9th inning in an attempt to save his struggling and overworked bullpen (although he still used five of his relievers in addition to Butera), the painful truth is that this type of thing only happens when you are getting your lunch handed to you by your opponent.

But it happened and it was ‘just one of those days.’

Then something disturbing occurred, it happened again – and only three days later on Saturday night. But what made this second ‘just one of those days’ things even stranger is that it happened with two-time Cy Young award winner Clayton Kershaw on the mound for the Dodgers – it happened to the best in the game.

“You are allowed to have bad days,” said the 26-year-old Dodger ace. “But those have to be salvaged and you’ve got to save your bullpen, at least try to get through five or six [innings] on bad days. You are allowed to have [one of those days], but not like this.”

Kershaw allowed an uncharacteristic seven earned runs in the second inning of what would eventually become an embarrassing 18-7 loss to the last place Arizona Diamondbacks. Even the almost-automatic Kershaw is human and entitled to occasionally have one of those days, but of greater concern is that it also happened again to the Dodgers bullpen (including another appearance by Butera), and it’s been happening a lot to the Dodgers Bullpen.

It’s easy to accept that the normally reliable Clayton Kershaw had one of those days, but it seems that every day is one of those days for the Dodgers bullpen. (Photo credit – Jon SooHoo)

What was most upsetting to Dodger fans about the laugher at Chase Field on Saturday night is that the suddenly surging Dodgers offense was able to get the Dodgers back in the game in spite of Kershaw’s struggles only to see the bullpen cough it up again. Aided by Yasiel Puig’s two-run home run in the third inning (his fourth home run in the last week) and a three-run shot by Carl Crawford in the fifth inning (his second in the last week), the Dodgers actually got back in the game trailing 7-5 game.

But in what seems to be almost a nightly occurrence, the Dodgers bullpen again failed miserably by giving up nine unanswered runs to the Dbacks bringing their collective season ERA to 4.38 – the 25th worst bullpen ERA in the MLB. And though Kershaw suffered the loss in Saturday night’s train wreck, (his first loss of the season), the Dodgers bullpen is responsible for 11 of the team’s 22 losses – tied with the Cubs for the most in the majors. The Dodgers bullpen has also allowed a total of 83 walks – second-most in the National League. They do, however, have 160 strikeouts – also second-most in the league and only six behind the Dbacks.

It was only a matter of time before the excessive number of walks given up by Chris Withrow would come around to bite him. Withrow walked two on Saturday night, both of which scored.
(Photo credit – Jon SooHoo)

It’s a reoccurring theme – the starting rotation and hot-hitting offense keeps the Dodgers in the games and the bullpen takes them out of it. This brings to mind another ‘one of those days’ analogies – It doesn’t matter if it’s not your time to go when you’re on an airplane if it’s somebody else’s time to go on that same airplane.