Yankees, Dodgers swept by rivals: Which team should be panicking the most?

It was not a great weekend for baseball's two most prestigious franchises. The New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers were summarily swept by their arch rivals, getting worked by the Boston Red Sox and San Francisco Giants in three straight losses. It's just the latest indignity in a recent string of them: New York and L.A. have gone a combined 10-19 in the month of June, and they now find themselves struggling to stay afloat in their respective divisions at 39-33.

Of course, because these are the Yankees and Dodgers we're talking about, this downturn has been met by calm, measured fan reaction calls to fire just about any and everyone, to proclaim this season over and blow the whole thing up. But just how warranted is the fear that the sky is falling? Which fan base has more of a reason to panic at the state of their team right now? We break it all down below.

Los Angeles Dodgers: How many injuries is too many?

L.A.'s current rotation would be nigh-unrecognizable to a Dodgers fan if you showed it to them back in February. Dustin May (forearm), Julio Urias (hamstring), Noah Syndergaard (finger) and Ryan Pepiot (oblique) are all on the IL, and even for a Los Angeles organization that has prided itself on its pitching depth over the past few years, that's been one heck of a stress test.

Some of those tests have failed: Michael Grove (8.10 ERA) and top prospect Gavin Stone (14.10) have been torched in the Majors so far this year. Some, on the other hand, have passed with flying colors: Rookies Bobby Miller (2.83 ERA) and Emmet Sheehan (six no-hit innings in his first career start) have hit the ground running. Still, L.A. has been forced to give a lot of innings to guys who were not initially in their 2023 plans, and for as great as Clayton Kershaw and Tony Gonsolin have been, that's bound to take its toll.

Which brings us to the overarching problem for the Dodgers right now: a lack of depth. We're used to this team churning out productive Major Leaguers, but that well has dried up a bit – and it's left weak spots all over this roster. Gavin Lux's injury forced prospect Miguel Vargas into an every-day role; he has a .699 OPS. James Outman, David Peralta and Jason Heyward were handed outfield jobs without a ton of competition; Outman is hitting .177 over the last month, while Peralta (35) and Heyward (33) have predictably struggled to make an impact at the plate. Los Angeles' stars – Kershaw, Gonsolin, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, closer Evan Phillips – are playing like stars, but the loss of free-agent talent (and an unwillingness or inability to replace them) is finally catching up.

New York Yankees: Can anyone step up with Aaron Judge out?

New York managed to put up a good fight for about a week after Judge landed on the IL with a toe injury, but the wheels have come off since. The offense has the single lowest wRC+ in all of baseball since the calendar flipped to June, forced to turn to guys like Jake Bauers, Billy McKinney, Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Willie Calhoun in the outfield with Judge and Harrison Bader out. Anthony Rizzo and Giancarlo Stanton are just about the only two reliable producers left in the Yankee lineup, and they're both aging stars with extensive injury histories – no one can be surprised that this team has managed to score five or more runs just four times in 15 games this month.

Of course, Brian Cashman and Co. have pieced together wins with an injury-depleted lineup before. So what's different this time? The pitching staff, long asked to do more than its fair share, is beginning to collapse under that weight. Gerrit Cole is finally starting to look like he's on the back-nine of his career, with a lower fastball velocity and whiff rates than he's had since his Pittsburgh Pirates days. Nestor Cortes and Carlos Rodon are both on the IL, weeks away from potential returns. After a strong first two starts, Luis Severino has looked like a shell of himself, with diminished velocity and a troubling lack of life on his slider. On top of all of that, a bullpen that was arguably baseball's best over the first two months has been closer to average of late.

The Yankees can't expect to score a ton of runs for the foreseeable future; blame injuries if you want, but the fact remains that this team's lineup has been disappearing for weeks at a time for years now, and is built around guys who can't be relied upon to stay healthy. The formula has to be starters going deep into games and a bullpen that can pull out close games, and New York is very far from anything like that right now.

So, who has the best chance of righting the ship and making a postseason push? The answer has to be the Dodgers, at least right now. Urias (and reliever Daniel Hudson) will be back at the end of the month, and a rotation of Kershaw/Gonsolin/Urias/Miller/Sheehan is absolutely good enough to win. L.A.'s pitching problems seem far more fixable than New York's right now, as the Yankees aren't sure when Cortes and Rodon will be back, what they'll look like when they are and whether Severino will ever get back to his old self. The Dodgers can support their starters with Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Will Smith and Max Muncy; New York is asking their pitchers to be near-perfect every time out. Maybe Judge makes it back sooner than expected and is great enough to carry this team on his own, but as currently constituted, this isn't a serious contender in the AL.

  
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