{"id":25722,"date":"2025-06-29T23:50:08","date_gmt":"2025-06-29T23:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/25722\/"},"modified":"2025-06-29T23:50:08","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T23:50:08","slug":"justin-wrobleski-gives-dodgers-a-surprising-boost-during-win-over","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/25722\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin Wrobleski gives Dodgers a surprising boost during win over"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

KANSAS CITY, Mo.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0In truth, there was very little notable action on Sunday afternoon at Kauffman Stadium.<\/p>\n

Which, in effect, is exactly how Justin Wrobleski<\/a> liked it.<\/p>\n

In the Dodgers<\/a>\u2019 5-1 win over the Kansas City Royals \u2014 a victory that clinched the weekend series and gave the club a 5-1 record on this past week\u2019s road trip \u2014 Wrobleski continued to quietly impress as a depth pitching option for the Dodgers, pitching six scoreless innings that were short on flash but long on substance; serving as the latest productive outing in his suddenly auspicious sophomore season.<\/p>\n

\u201cJustin\u2019s confidence is at an all-time high,\u201d manager Dave Roberts said. \u201cAnd he\u2019s a confident young man already.\u201d<\/p>\n

Entering the game behind opener Lou Trivino at the start of the second, Wrobleski made easy work of a struggling Kansas City offense, giving up just three hits and one walk in a six-strikeout showing as the Dodgers (53-32) pulled away at the plate.<\/p>\n

Kik\u00e9 Hern\u00e1ndez hit a two-run homer in the second. Will Smith added a solo shot in the sixth. And by the time the team tacked on two more runs in the seventh, such extra insurance was already looking unneeded.<\/p>\n

Instead, Wrobleski further raised his stock in what has been a surprise midseason rejuvenation, turning in his best career performance at the big-league level.<\/p>\n

Over his 83-pitch outing, the Royals (39-45) only once managed to even put a runner in scoring position. They squandered all three leadoff hitters who reached base. And during their best opportunity to rally in the third, Wrobleski mowed through the heart of their order, sandwiching one strikeout of Jonathan India and fielder\u2019s choice grounder from Vinnie Pasquantino with a statement-sending punchout of Royals star Bobby Witt Jr., getting him to whiff on a 96-mph fastball and putaway two-strike slider.<\/p>\n

\u201cBobby Witt is one of the best hitters in the game,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cAnd for him to beat him with the fastball, he wasn\u2019t doing that last year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, few saw Wrobleski\u2019s surge coming this season.<\/p>\n

After a choppy eight-game debut last year, when he had a 5.70 ERA, the 24-year-old left-hander\u2019s first opportunity in the majors this season was a total disaster, giving up eight runs in five innings to the Washington Nationals<\/a> back on April 8.<\/p>\n

Wrobleski was optioned back to the minor leagues after that, and made only one MLB appearance over the next two months: a four-inning outing in mop-up relief duty during a May 15 blowout of the Athletics.<\/p>\n

At the start of June, however, he was called back up to make a spot start in St. Louis, turning in a decent six-inning, four-run effort. And since then, he has continued to get better each time out. In his last 20 innings \u2014 all of them coming in bulk relief \u2014 he has conceded just four earned runs while striking out 21 batters. His overall ERA in five June appearances was 2.73.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving that bad one in Washington, honestly, set me back in a good way,\u201d Wrobleski said. \u201cI had to go back down, make a few adjustments.\u201d<\/p>\n

And now, he joked, that D.C. start \u201cfeels like it was three years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

The biggest difference with Wrobleski of late has been his fastball. In that April start against the Nationals, it averaged just 93 mph. In every outing since, it has sat around 96-97 mph, and topped out above 99 mph.<\/p>\n

Wrobleski credited the improvement with some small mechanical tweaks, having adopted a wider base in his pre-pitch stance and incorporated a rocking motion in his delivery to help him direct his momentum toward the plate.<\/p>\n

But also, he said he has simply found a way to throw with maximum effort more consistently \u2014 coupling it with an increased reliance on his sinker to attack the zone and induce quick outs.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it just goes back to me being me,\u201d said Wrobleski, an 11th round pick out of Oklahoma State in 2021. \u201cThat\u2019s how I got here was doing that. I got away from it a little bit, tried to quote-unquote \u2018throw strikes,\u2019 and when you do that, it leads to results that are not desirable. But at the end of the day, [I just want to] throw my best stuff for as long as I can until they take the ball. I think that\u2019s been a major key.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result, Wrobleski\u2019s name is quickly rising among the hierarchy of young Dodgers pitching.<\/p>\n

The fact that he was even on this road trip was a sign of the organization\u2019s growing confidence in his abilities.<\/p>\n

During the team\u2019s last homestand, fellow young talent Emmet Sheehan returned from Tommy John surgery with four sharp innings<\/a>, and seemed primed to occupy an open spot in the Dodgers\u2019 rotation moving forward. However, with Sheehan not yet fully built up, the club elected to option him back to triple A and have Wrobleski pitch twice in a six-day span this week, with a five-inning, two-run outing in Colorado on Tuesday preceding Sunday\u2019s gem in Kansas City.<\/p>\n

Sheehan should be back in the majors soon, having pitched six perfect innings with 13 strikeouts in a start with Oklahoma City on Wednesday (manager Dave Roberts said Sheehan\u2019s next outing will also be with OKC, though he could still rejoin the Dodgers before the end of their upcoming homestand).<\/p>\n

But now, he\u2019s not the only former prospect showing flashes of being an impact option in the majors.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s changed a lot,\u201d Roberts said of the team\u2019s evaluation of Wrobleski. \u201cWe\u2019ve always valued him and thought a lot of him as far as the talent. But right now, he\u2019s getting major league hitters out \u2026 And in the spirit of getting opportunities while earning them, he\u2019s doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KANSAS CITY, Mo.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0In truth, there was very little notable action on Sunday afternoon at Kauffman Stadium. Which, in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":25723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,2442,3688,22796,1284,2961,224,5337,3857,22802,22803,21697,22804,22801,22799,22800,22797,2030,22798],"class_list":{"0":"post-25722","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-dodgers","11":"tag-inning","12":"tag-justin-wrobleski","13":"tag-kansas-city-royals","14":"tag-la","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-losangeles","17":"tag-major","18":"tag-more-run","19":"tag-mph","20":"tag-outing","21":"tag-past-week","22":"tag-sheehan","23":"tag-start","24":"tag-sunday-afternoon","25":"tag-surprising-boost","26":"tag-win","27":"tag-wrobleski"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114769338397084196","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25722","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=25722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}