KANSAS CITY, Mo. — In truth, there was very little notable action on Sunday afternoon at Kauffman Stadium.
Which, in effect, is exactly how Justin Wrobleski liked it.
In the Dodgers’ 5-1 win over the Kansas City Royals — a victory that clinched the weekend series and gave the club a 5-1 record on this past week’s road trip — 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.
“Justin’s confidence is at an all-time high,” manager Dave Roberts said. “And he’s a confident young man already.”
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.
Kiké Hernández 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.
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.
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’s 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.
“Bobby Witt is one of the best hitters in the game,” Roberts said. “And for him to beat him with the fastball, he wasn’t doing that last year.”
Indeed, few saw Wrobleski’s surge coming this season.
After a choppy eight-game debut last year, when he had a 5.70 ERA, the 24-year-old left-hander’s first opportunity in the majors this season was a total disaster, giving up eight runs in five innings to the Washington Nationals back on April 8.
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.
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 — all of them coming in bulk relief — he has conceded just four earned runs while striking out 21 batters. His overall ERA in five June appearances was 2.73.
“Having that bad one in Washington, honestly, set me back in a good way,” Wrobleski said. “I had to go back down, make a few adjustments.”
And now, he joked, that D.C. start “feels like it was three years ago.”
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.
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.
But also, he said he has simply found a way to throw with maximum effort more consistently — coupling it with an increased reliance on his sinker to attack the zone and induce quick outs.
“I think it just goes back to me being me,” said Wrobleski, an 11th round pick out of Oklahoma State in 2021. “That’s how I got here was doing that. I got away from it a little bit, tried to quote-unquote ‘throw strikes,’ 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’s been a major key.”
As a result, Wrobleski’s name is quickly rising among the hierarchy of young Dodgers pitching.
The fact that he was even on this road trip was a sign of the organization’s growing confidence in his abilities.
During the team’s last homestand, fellow young talent Emmet Sheehan returned from Tommy John surgery with four sharp innings, and seemed primed to occupy an open spot in the Dodgers’ 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’s gem in Kansas City.
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’s next outing will also be with OKC, though he could still rejoin the Dodgers before the end of their upcoming homestand).
But now, he’s not the only former prospect showing flashes of being an impact option in the majors.
“He’s changed a lot,” Roberts said of the team’s evaluation of Wrobleski. “We’ve always valued him and thought a lot of him as far as the talent. But right now, he’s getting major league hitters out … And in the spirit of getting opportunities while earning them, he’s doing that.”
