July 20th, 2023 at 8:00 am 
by Ron Cervenka No one wants to say it or even think it, but there is something wrong with extremely popular Dodgers left-hander Julio Urías – something seriously wrong.
For the fifth time in his thus far 14 starts this season, the 26-year-old Culiacan, Mexico native, who the Dodgers signed as an amateur free agent on August 17, 2012, struggled horribly in the Dodgers ugly 8-5 interleague loss to the Baltimore Orioles at Oriole Park at Camden Yards on Wednesday, when he allowed eight runs on eight hits with two walks and only two strikeouts to the 25 Orioles batters he faced in his 5.0 innings pitch, doing so on 93 total pitches, of which 66 were strikes.
As Dodgers fans may recall, Urías suffered a painfully similar fate on July 1, when he allowed five runs on six hits with two walks, two strikeouts, a hit batsman, and a balk to the 17 Kansas City Royals batters he faced at Kauffman Stadium in his 3.0 innings pitch, doing so on 66 total pitches, of which 43 were strikes. Urías and the Dodgers lost that one by a score of 6-4.
To his credit, Urías owned up to his poor outing, telling reporters postgame (through an interpreter):
“Yeah, just inconsistencies all the way around, you know. The offense got off to a great start, they gave me a good lead to get off the mound, you know, just inconsistent all the way throughout with my command, my pitches, with everything. Just a lot of lack of command, especially with the great response they put out for me.”
As he often does, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts gave a reply which, quite frankly, sounded more like an excuse than an explanation when asked about his southpaw’s continuing struggles:
“Yeah, you know, I think… I don’t know… um, it just didn’t seem like …ah he was really comfortable out there. Um… ironically, I think that last inning, they’re probably some of his best throws. He gave up that home run, but I thought that inning, the velocity was up, the throws were better, …um, just ran out of bullets, and I just think that, you know, the stuff just wasn’t sharp and, with that, led to some soft contact early… um, didn’t have command. So it’s just one of those days that ah… you know, the last couple have been really good for him, and it’s one of those things that it happens.”
That “…soft contact…” included one home run, four doubles, three singles, one stolen base, and one wild pitch.
With all due respect, Dave, Julio Urías is broken and would probably benefit greatly from spending a little time at Triple-A Oklahoma City to figure it out and get back to the Julio that we all know and very much love.
Play Ball!
* * * * * *
Posted in 
I can’t remember a player at Cy Young level heading into his free agent yr performing as bad as Julio.
Me neither. He’s still going to get paid but he’s definitely costing himself some money. What’s crazy is that every guy who finished top 3 in the Cy Young voting last year is either struggling bad or hurt. Alcantara is on pace to post the worst ERA for a reigning Cy Young winner ever. Pretty wild.
Yeah, great idea sending Julio down to AAA Oklahoma City – which would mean we would have to promote yet another minor league pitcher to fill in his slot. With Clayton Kershaw out until August, that would mean four-fifths of our starting pitching rotation would consist of rookie pitchers: Bobby Miller, Emmett Sheehan, and Michael Grove; with the sole veteran being Tony Gonsolin. With less than a 2 game division leading heading into the last two months of the season, that doesn’t provide a whole lot of peace of mind of staving off the Giants and Diamondbacks. Given that Julio Urias won the NL earned run average title last season, I think he deserves a little slack to work out his inconsistencies for the stretch season run.
There is zero doubt that this is what Friedman and Roberts will do with Julio. We will all see how this works out for him.
🙏🙏🙏
If the LADs had a rotation of Kershaw, Buehler, Dustin May and with Tony Gonsolin as the 5th starter, then it would be reasonable to send Urias down to OKC. But with a rotation where Gonsolin is the putative no. 1 starter for the time being, sending Urias down is just not an option.
I think you guys may be missing the point here. Sending Urías down to Triple-A OKC would not be done as punishments, it would be done for him (and the coaching staff) to figure out what’s ‘broken’ and fix it in a much less stressful (and impactful) environment than on a major league field, where it could affect the NL West standings.
Again, I am a HUGE Urías fan and want nothing more than for him to be successful. But you can clearly see in his postgame interview on Wednesday that his current struggles are affecting him mentally.
Another option might be for him skip a start or two to help him get his head straight. Just a thought.