With Brandon McCarthy out until mid-2016 and Hyun-Jin Ryu still sidelined with a shoulder injury, trade rumors have surrounded the Los Angeles Dodgers. However, a couple of replacement starters have silenced the speculation as of late.
Those two guys are Carlos Frias and Mike Bolsinger. The 25-year-old Frias owns a 2-0 record with a 3.30 ERA in three starts for the Dodgers and the 27-year-old Bolsinger is 1-0 with a 1.59 ERA in two starts. Los Angeles is 22-11 and atop the NL West, so there isn't much for Don Mattingly to worry about at the moment. In fact, he implied these two right-handers could be mainstays in the rotation - for now.
Frias was in line for the win last night, but the Dodgers' bullpen surrendered two runs in the seventh inning and they lost 5-4 to the Miami Marlins. Considering Mattingly has went with the youngster for three consecutive starts, it's likely that stays the same after Wednesday night's outing. Bolsinger is a bit of a different story.
The right-hander made his first start for the Dodgers on Apr. 23 and then came back to the rotation on May 12 and defeated the Marlins in an 11-1 win. Bolsinger allowed one earned run on five hits and two walks in 5 2/3 innings in that outing and it appears as if he's earned himself another start.
"I would think so," Mattingly told Steve Dilbeck of the Los Angeles Times when asked about Bolsinger heading out to the mound again on Sunday against the Colorado Rockies. "Mike threw the ball well. We still have a little bit of wiggle room, but we're getting to the point where we have to settle in and get on track with our five guys."
"If we can get guys who can keep us in the game and give us a chance to win, that's really what you ask out of every guy. It's really no different with Mike than it would be with Clayton [Kershaw] or Zack [Greinke]."
However, this is a very small sample size, even though Frias and Bolsinger have provided solid relief in the wake of the starting rotation's woes. For now the two might be able to halt the trade rumors involving Cole Hamels, Johnny Cueto, Jeff Samardzija, Jordan Zimmermann, Scott Kazmir and others, but how long can it possibly last?
"Mattingly would clearly like to add stability to his rotation. And if a rotation with Frias and Bolsinger was hardly what the Dodgers had in mind when they went to camp, it may offer their best alternative at the moment," adds Dilbeck.
"A trade is still very much a possibility, but in the meantime there's only so much shuttling a team can do and consistently expect results."
After all, maybe president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman has some sort of plan up his sleeve. He and general manager Farhan Zaidi traded for Bolsinger this offseason and stuck with Frias after he had a bad rookie season in 2014 in the minors and at the MLB level.
Friedman did mention the team would look to plug the holes in the rotation internally first, but that doesn't necessarily mean he views any of those options as a long-term solution.
