{"id":112065,"date":"2025-08-02T04:30:15","date_gmt":"2025-08-02T04:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/112065\/"},"modified":"2025-08-02T04:30:15","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T04:30:15","slug":"dodgers-welcome-deadline-additions-hopeful-arrival-raises-the-floor-for-our-ballclub","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/112065\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers welcome deadline additions, hopeful arrival \u2018raises the floor for our ballclub\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

TAMPA, Fla.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The Dodgers<\/a> didn\u2019t go shopping at the top of the market ahead of Thursday\u2019s trade deadline<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But what they came away with \u2014 right-handed relievers Brock Stewart<\/a> and Paul Gervase<\/a> to bolster the bullpen, and versatile outfielder Alex Call<\/a> to round out the lineup \u2014 are the kind of moves that \u201cjust raises the floor for our ballclub,\u201d manager Dave Roberts<\/a> said Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel we did get better,\u201d Roberts said, before echoing the front office\u2019s hope that the Dodgers\u2019 biggest improvements over the final two months of the season come from the star-studded, but underperforming, core they already have in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve got a pretty dang good team. I think if you look at it from the offensive side, as far as our guys, they\u2019ll be the first to tell you they\u2019ve got to perform better and more consistently. That\u2019s something that we\u2019re all counting on \u2026 I love our club. I really do. Now it\u2019s up to all of us to go out there and do our jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n

The job for the Dodgers\u2019 two biggest acquisitions, Stewart and Call, will be clear from the get-go.<\/p>\n

Stewart, a former Dodgers swingman from 2016 to 2019, has reinvented himself<\/a> in the second half of his career. Unlike his first stint in Los Angeles, when he threw in the low 90s and was a fringe long reliever on the roster, Stewart is now a higher-leverage relief option, with a mid-to-upper 90s fastball and swing-and-miss sweeper he has used to dominate right-handed hitters this season.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end [of his first Dodgers stint], he lost the velocity and was trying to figure out if he could hang on and who he was at that point,\u201d Roberts recalled. \u201cObviously, he\u2019s put in a ton of work to sort of find himself again. He\u2019s had nothing but success. I\u2019m excited to see this version of him. He certainly shouldn\u2019t lack for confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stewart won\u2019t fix the Dodgers\u2019 ninth-inning problems \u2014 with their closer role up in the air ever since struggling offseason signing Tanner Scott<\/a> went on the injured list with an elbow injury \u2014 but could get some save situations \u201cin the right situation,\u201d Roberts said \u2014 for instance, if a run of right-handed hitters (who are batting just .104 with a .327. OPS against him this year) are up at the end of the game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI trust the guy, I trust the player, what he\u2019s become,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cSo for me, if the situation calls for it tonight and he\u2019s in the ninth inning, I\u2019ve got all the confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gervase, a 6-foot-10 right-hander the Dodgers acquired from the Tampa Bay Rays in exchange for catcher Hunter Feduccia as part of a three-team trade on Wednesday night, was also on the active roster Friday. He comes with just five previous career MLB appearances, but a deceptive delivery aided by his long-limbed extension on the mound.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know a whole lot about him,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cI know he\u2019s got a big arm. He\u2019s got some extension, some rise, but I haven\u2019t seen him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The arrival of Stewart and Gervase did coincide with yet another loss in the bullpen. Veteran right-hander Kirby Yates<\/a>, another offseason signing who has disappointed with a 4.31 ERA this season, was placed on the injured list because of lingering discomfort in his pelvic and lower-back area. He went back to Los Angeles to get further testing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the last, call it, two weeks, he hasn\u2019t felt great,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cHasn\u2019t been injured, in his words, which is why he kept pitching and competing. But we flew him home this morning to look at the doctor and kind of get some tests to see if there\u2019s something that\u2019s kind of been aggravating him. Something\u2019s just not right, exactly. So we\u2019re trying to suss that out.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the lineup, Roberts said Call \u2014 a 30-year-old right-handed-hitting journeyman who found a niche with the Washington Nationals the last few seasons as an on-base threat capable of grinding out tough at-bats \u2014 would mix in at all three outfield spots.<\/p>\n

\u201c[He is] a tough, feisty hitter,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cI certainly see him playing versus left. But I think he\u2019s pretty much a neutral guy. Slugs a little more against left, but gets on base against right. I\u2019m going to try to keep him in there a couple times a week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Call said he wasn\u2019t shocked to learn he had been traded on Thursday, and was excited by the \u201cchance to compete in the playoffs and win a World Series\u201d with a first-place Dodgers team.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, I am going to grind out at-bats, put the ball in play, take my walks, make it tough on the pitcher,\u201d said Call, who has hit .297 with the Nationals in 102 games over the last two seasons. \u201cJust really make the [pitchers] work so that hopefully they\u2019re tired when the top of the order comes back around or whatever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roki Sasaki facing hitters<\/p>\n

Internally, the Dodgers are hoping rookie Japanese pitcher Roki Sasaki<\/a> can also serve as a de facto late-season addition after missing the last several months with a shoulder injury.<\/p>\n

And this week, the right-hander took a key step in his recovery process.<\/p>\n

Sasaki faced hitters for the first time since getting hurt in a simulated inning this past week in Arizona, Roberts said, and is scheduled to throw two more simulated innings on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The team has been targeting a late-August return for Sasaki, who had a 4.72 ERA in eight starts this season before going on the IL.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The Dodgers didn\u2019t go shopping at the top of the market ahead of Thursday\u2019s trade deadline. But…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":112066,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[70912,70910,69428,13136,2442,70911,23590,70909,2444,1266,68510,26804,60661,5950,62,67,132,68,1291,2452],"class_list":{"0":"post-112065","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-6-foot-10-right-hander","9":"tag-ballclub","10":"tag-brock-stewart","11":"tag-call","12":"tag-dodgers","13":"tag-floor","14":"tag-guy","15":"tag-hopeful-arrival","16":"tag-los-angeles-times","17":"tag-mlb","18":"tag-paul-gervase","19":"tag-roberts","20":"tag-sasaki","21":"tag-season","22":"tag-sports","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-washington-nationals","27":"tag-week"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114957295757941632","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112065","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112065"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112065\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112066"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}