Tarik Skubal’s gritty starts offer a spark for a Dodgers club stuck in reverse, per Yahoo’s Swanson

Los Angeles has been in an unfavorable stretch, and in that context, Tarik Skubal’s willingness to grind through starts has stood out as the clearest, most immediate point of reference for the Dodgers. In a Yahoo Sports column, Swanson framed the issue as a contrast between effort and outcomes, arguing that Skubal’s approach is at least sending the right message when the rest of the club feels trapped in a slump.

The column’s central idea is that Skubal’s starts have not yet reached what the author described as “Cy Young-caliber” form for the Dodgers. Still, Swanson emphasized that he has been “battling,” positioning those gritty performances as the kind of runway a struggling team needs. The implication is not that the Dodgers can erase a broader skid with one pitcher’s toughness, but that a clear standard of competitiveness can change how a team responds day-to-day.

Swanson also pointed to how uneven the Dodgers’ run of play has been beyond Skubal. In the author’s telling, Los Angeles has been in “a much worse funk” than the work Skubal has been able to put in. That distinction matters because in baseball, a slump can spread through sequencing, confidence, and bullpen usage, making it harder for even strong players to operate at full efficiency. When the entire performance level dips, a “battling” starter becomes a barometer for whether the team’s response will be stubborn or passive.

The column includes a specific recent-team snapshot: it references the Dodgers’ 6-2 loss to the Brewers Sunday and the visual of Freddie Freeman reacting to a foul ball in the ninth inning. That detail underscores a late-game reality many slumping clubs face, where the end of a game arrives with the feeling that the margin was there early but never tilted back in their direction.

For Dodgers fans, the key question becomes whether Skubal’s competitiveness can translate into enough tangible momentum to lift the rest of the roster. Swanson’s pitch is that if Skubal keeps fighting in the way he showed Sunday, Los Angeles will respond with the kind of support that can turn close innings into runs and tighten the link between starting pitching and late-inning execution.

It is also worth noting what the column does not claim. It does not frame Skubal’s current body of work as a completed transformation, and it does not credit any single game with fixing the organization’s short-term troubles. Instead, it presents a conditional argument: the Dodgers’ odds improve if they can meet the level of effort their best innings promise, and if that effort spreads through the lineup and the bullpen.

What to watch next is whether the Dodgers can turn Skubal’s grind into a broader standard. If his competitiveness is paired with more consistent run production and cleaner relief support, his starts could function less as isolated spotlights and more as the foundation of a real correction. If not, the column’s theme will remain painfully familiar, a team chasing its way out while the calendar keeps turning.

From a broader MLB perspective, the column highlights a common late-season dynamic: when standings pressure increases, teams often look for psychological anchors. A starter who competes through adversity can become that anchor, even if the results are not yet matching the level of dominance typically associated with the highest postseason expectations.