Edwin Díaz is not a closer right now. He is a $69 million question mark in a Dodgers uniform, and the neck inflammation that put him back on the injured list Tuesday is the latest exhibit in a case I have been building since the ink dried on that contract.
I watched this man terrorize hitters for the Mets last season. A 1.63 ERA. Twenty-eight saves. The three-time All-Star who made the ninth inning feel like a formality. Then Los Angeles paid him like a cornerstone, and what they got in return is 13 2/3 innings of pure chaos: an 11.85 ERA, a 2.56 WHIP, four blown saves against seven conversions, and a bullpen that still cannot exhale when the late innings arrive.
Dave Roberts tried to spin the silver lining. “I think this is something where Edwin — I don’t know if he’s encouraged — but there’s just knowing that there could be a reason why his stuff has not been playing like it has in the past,” the manager said. “With the neck, obviously, there are ties to the whole body. I’m personally excited that we can find something that’s going on.”
Excited. That is the word he used. I will give Roberts this much: at least he is hunting for an explanation instead of pretending the results are a mirage. But excitement does not erase what I saw Monday night in Colorado, when Díaz coughed up three runs in the ninth of an 11-5 win and made a blowout feel precarious again. “We don’t know if this is something that has been there the last week or so, but it showed its head last night,” Roberts admitted. The neck issue announced itself. The performance problems have been screaming for months.
This Is Not Bad Luck. This Is a Pattern.
Let me walk you through the timeline like a prosecutor walking a jury through the evidence. Díaz arrives, struggles through seven early appearances, hits the injured list April 20 for loose bodies in the pitching elbow, undergoes surgery, and vanishes for roughly three months. He returns July 29 on his own bobblehead night, touches 99, earns a save against Seattle, and the stadium breathes. Then the regression starts. Runs in six of nine outings since activation. Three blown saves in that stretch alone. Nine earned runs in five innings since August 7. The stuff that once ended games now invites traffic.
Díaz himself sounded grateful for the rope. “That’s going to help with my confidence, 100 percent,” he said before this latest IL stint. “They keep trusting me. If it was in another position, maybe they put another guy, or give me a break. But they keep trusting me and give me the ball.” That trust is admirable. It is also expensive. Tanner Scott is the closer now by default. Emmet Sheehan got the recall for length. The defending champions are patching the back end in August while sitting 6-10 for the month and watching a bullpen that was supposed to be fortified instead become the soft spot again.
I have covered enough late-inning collapses to know the difference between a rough patch and a structural failure. This is structural. The elbow procedure was real. The neck inflammation is real. The MRI came back clean, which is the best-case medical news, and Roberts does not see him out for the year. Fine. He will throw again. That does not change the fact that a $23 million average annual value has produced fewer trustworthy ninth innings than a mid-tier free agent would have delivered by accident.
Legacy Does Not Wait for MRIs
Here is what is actually at stake, and I need people to hear me. The Dodgers did not sign Edwin Díaz to be a project. They signed him to slam the door on October baseball the way he slammed it in Queens. They already won two straight World Series with a bullpen that had to find itself under fire. Paying Díaz was supposed to remove the uncertainty. Instead it multiplied it. Every outing since his return has been a referendum on whether the velocity and the reputation still match the results. Too often, they do not.
Roberts said after the Rockies mess that he still believes. “I just hope he doesn’t lose his confidence. I believe in him. The compete was there. Obviously the results weren’t good.” Compete is not a save. Compete does not protect a lead. Compete does not justify the money or the expectation that comes with putting on Dodger blue in August with a pennant race and a title defense on the calendar.
I SAID the closer market was treacherous when this deal got done. High-leverage arms age in dog years. Neck tightness that ties into the whole kinetic chain is exactly the kind of quiet thief that steals a season one ugly inning at a time. Díaz is 32. He has the pedigree. What he does not have, right now, is the proof. And in this sport, pedigree without proof is just a press release with a price tag.
The Dodgers can rest him, treat the trapezius, rebuild the trust, and roll him out in September. They can tell themselves the MRI was clean and the year is salvageable. I am telling you the ledger already has too many red entries. Seven saves. Four blows. An ERA that would get a non-roster invitee cut in spring training. THAT is the record. THAT is what $69 million has bought so far.
When Díaz comes back, and Roberts insists he will, the ball will be in his hand again because this organization has already decided to keep trusting him. My question is simple and it is not going away: why should the rest of us? Until the ninth inning stops feeling like a coin flip, Edwin Díaz is not the answer in Los Angeles. He is the problem they paid premium dollars to import. And every day he spends on the injured list is another day that truth gets harder to ignore.
