It took all of five games, but the defending 2020 World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers are right where they belong – alone atop the National League West standings.

Although five games does not a season make, we are getting a very good look at potential Cy Young, Rookie of the Year, MVP, batting title, and ERA title winners; a ridiculous – but realistic – proclamation only five games into the new season.

Twenty-three-year-old Dodgers right-hander Dustin May was exceptional in his season debut on Monday night, allowing no runs and only two hits, with two walks and a career-high eight strikeouts in his stellar 6.0 innings of work, while hitting 100-MPH several times with his cut fastball. When asked if he lobbied with Dodgers manager Dave Roberts to go back out for the seventh, the young Justin, TX native and Dodgers third-round draft pick in 2016 out of Northwest High School in Justin said “Those were the first words out of my mouth.”

Twenty-five-year-old utility infielder/outfielder Zach McKinstry is absolutely tearing it up in the early goings with an alien-like .545 (6-for-11) batting average, with one home run, three doubles, and four RBI. “My job is to get on base. There are a lot of superstar players behind me,” McKinstry said postgame.

Twenty-six-year-old shortstop and defending World Series MVP Corey Seager has hit safely in the four games he has played thus far, with three doubles and six RBI and an equally alien-like .526 (9-for-17) batting average.

Twenty-six-year-old catcher Will Smith has had 10 at-bats this far in the young season. He has homered in two of them and is touting a .500 batting average and a National League-leading 1.925 OPS.

But as they say (whoever they are), ‘All that glitters is not gold.’

Overshadowed by what could very well be the best Dodgers team since moving to Los Angeles in 1958 – or ever – is one guy who is off to a horrendous start to the new season – 35-year-old former AL Cy Young award winner and five-time All-Star left-hander David Price.

Although the Murfreesboro, TN native and first-round draft pick in 2007 by the (then) Tampa Bay Devil Rays out of Vanderbilt has made only two relief appearances thus far in the new season, he has allowed five earned runs and nine hits to the 21 batters he has faced – including a MLB-leading three home runs – for an atrocious 12.27 ERA in his combined 3.2 innings of work.

But if you are a Dodger and Dave Roberts is your manager … no problem.

“I’ll say this, is that I don’t care about the line score,” Roberts said when asked about Price’s second consecutive less-than-stellar outing on Monday night. “What I do care about is that he takes the baseball and the stuff is there. I think that with him, he hasn’t pitched in over a year at the major league level, and so we see the fastball, where it’s at, the cutter characteristics, what it’s doing, the change-up, what it’s doing. That’s something that I can really be encouraged about. The command, I think right now, he’s just not as sharp, but he will be. And so he’s always been a guy who executes and has excellent command, and it’s not there, and that’s to be expected. But his stuff is in play, and so I have all the confidence in the world in David.”

What Roberts apparently chooses to ignore is that Price’s stuff actually isn’t there. The one-time superstar has faced 21 batters and has made a total of 74 pitches, of which only 45 were strikes (61 percent). And though he has struck out two, he has also walked two and, as noted, given up three home runs … in 3.2 innings pitched.

Fortunately for the Dodgers – and especially for Dave Roberts – the Dodgers have the indisputable best pitching staff – starters and relievers – in the game today, if not ever.

…David Price notwithstanding.

Play Ball!

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