This Time, Teams Could Have Stopped the Dodgers

Major League Baseball fans felt a familiar foreboding on Saturday night, a little after 7 p.m. Tulsa time. That was when word circulated that Zyhir Hope, a 21-year-old outfielder for the Dodgers’ Double-A affiliate, the Tulsa Drillers, had been scratched from the starting lineup shortly before first pitch. Just as a communications disruption can mean only one thing—invasion—a playing-time disruption for a heralded but expendable Dodgers prospect two days before the trade deadline can mean only that the best team in baseball is once again poised to snap up the best player available. Predictably, the next Dodgers domino fell a few hours later, when the two-time defending World Series champions acquired the Tigers’ two-time defending Cy Young Award winner, Tarik Skubal.