Gavin Could Wait

 

When the Dodgers called up Gavin Lux in 2019, it was thought to be a killswitch move. The Dodgers were cruising thanks to Corey Seager, Cody Bellinger, Walker Buehler and Enrique Hernandez, and now Lux would be the next homegrown step, along with newer pieces like Will Smith, to cement the franchise's landmark status. His getting off to a decent enough start was expected, as was his minimized role in the Dodgers' sole WS win with this regime.

Since then? Lux has had one truly great season, a bunch of injury-plagued seasons and this current year, where it took him ages to heat up and he's only now gotten to where he should have been all along. He's 26 years old, and he's really only had a handful of success under his belt. In LA, where if somebody isn't working they can just buy somebody better. 

Still, Lux has proved himself a strong competitor, especially in a period where many important Dodger pieces are either hurt, slumping or simply in flux. Lux is hitting .249 on the season, but since the all-star break he's been hitting .333 with 36 hits, 21 RBIs and 7 home runs. This is the kind of pace people wish he was getting to earlier, and hopefully he stays there as the Dodgers rebound towards September. Having Lux in place now, especially as people like Kiké Hernandez, Tommy Edman and Chris Taylor can only do so much filling in for infield positions, definitely helps.

Now the team has Mookie Betts and Gavin Lux back, and are beginning to see Freddie Freeman come back from his family emergency. Betts has dipped under .300, and is taking a little while to come back, but it's still important that he's back. Muncy's immediately power hitting again, he's already got 5 RBIs and 2 homers since the return. Teoscar's chasing 30, Flaherty and Kopech have been brilliant since coming over, Kershaw is at the very least keeping his ERA under 4...oh and Shohei Ohtani's got a 40-40 season and wants to go 50-50. A lot is happening in Dodgerville, and even if this clearly isn't the mightiest Dodgers team in the past few years, they've got a lot of big things to accomplish before the season's out, and they're gonna get it done.

I'd love for this to be the beginning of a strong run for Lux, if he becomes a perennial guy for them. They're clearly hoping for him to be this everyday hero, and right now he's playing really well without being Bobby Witt. We'll see how far he can go.

Coming Tomorrow- He's not the first Braves starter with a really long name to strike out a ton of people, but he might be the most crucial.