Dodgers bullpen reaches 38 straight scoreless innings without closer Edwin Diaz

What happened

The Los Angeles Dodgers' bullpen has delivered 38 consecutive scoreless innings, a franchise record in the modern era, per MLB Trade Rumors. The streak continued Sunday when Will Klein and Tanner Scott combined for two perfect innings and four strikeouts, covering the final two frames after Yoshinobu Yamamoto threw seven. The whole thing is unfolding without Edwin Diaz, the club's closer, who underwent elbow surgery in April.

Why it matters

A bullpen posting 38 straight scoreless innings earns a raised eyebrow even before you check the context. Once you check the context — a star closer absent since April, elbow surgery, the long season still very much in progress — the eyebrow stays raised.

Per MLB Trade Rumors, citing Sarah Langs of MLB.com, the streak is the longest leaguewide since Cleveland's bullpen posted zeroes across 38 2/3 innings in 2017. That Cleveland run ended. The Dodgers' is still going. The franchise record in the modern era now belongs to a relief corps that has been asked to carry more weight than it might have expected when the season began, given Diaz's absence.

The operational reality behind a closer's absence is worth spelling out. Under general league mechanics, a pitcher placed on the injured list — particularly the 60-day IL — is removed from the 40-man roster count, which creates roster flexibility but does nothing to replace the leverage innings that closer was expected to handle. The Dodgers have had to redistribute those high-leverage situations across the rest of the bullpen, and through those consecutive scoreless innings, the redistribution has gone about as well as a front office could hope.

What does Diaz's absence mean for how the bullpen is built?

It means the back-end structure that most clubs take for granted — a defined closer, a defined setup man, a clear chain of command in the ninth — has had to be assembled differently. Per the report, Klein and Scott handled Sunday's final two innings between them. That kind of shared workload, two arms splitting what might otherwise be a closer's domain, reflects the practical reality of constructing a late-game unit around an absence rather than around a single anchor.

The 15-day injured list applies to pitchers and two-way players under general league rules, with the 60-day IL available for longer-term situations — and a player on the 60-day IL does not count against the 40-man roster. MLB Trade Rumors does not specify which IL designation applies to Diaz, nor does it offer a timetable for his return. What the report does establish is that the surgery happened in April, meaning the bullpen has been operating without him for a meaningful stretch of the season.

The streak in league-wide context

The 2017 Cleveland comparison is the useful benchmark here, and it is the one MLB Trade Rumors provides. That Cleveland bullpen streak reached 38 2/3 innings before it ended. The Dodgers are at 38 innings and, as of Sunday, still going. Whether the current streak surpasses Cleveland's mark is the next threshold worth watching — though the desk will note, with appropriate neutrality, that bullpen streaks have a way of ending at the least convenient moment, usually against a lineup that has seen the same arms a few too many times.

Sunday's contribution from Klein and Scott — four strikeouts across two perfect innings — kept the number intact. Yamamoto's seven-inning start meant the bullpen only needed to cover two frames, which is the kind of workload management that helps a streak breathe. A bullpen asked to cover five or six innings every night is a bullpen that will eventually run out of perfect outings. The Dodgers, at least on Sunday, got a long start that kept the ask modest.

Where the club stands

MLB Trade Rumors does not include a specific win-loss record or division standing for the Dodgers in this report, so the desk cannot place the club in their division race with a precise line. What the source does establish is the operational picture: a bullpen performing at a historically notable level, a rotation capable of delivering seven-inning starts from Yamamoto, and a closer-shaped hole that the rest of the relief corps has, so far, declined to treat as a problem.

That combination — a deep, effective bullpen and a starter who can limit the relief workload on a given night — is the structural reason a streak like this becomes possible. It is also the reason the absence of a defined closer has not, at least through those 38 innings, registered as a visible wound in the box scores.

What we don't know yet

MLB Trade Rumors does not include a timetable for Diaz's return, a specific IL designation, or any detail about what the elbow surgery involved. The report establishes that the surgery occurred in April and that his absence has shaped how the bullpen has been constructed — and that is the extent of what the material covers. Any projection of when he might return, or what his role would look like upon return, goes beyond what was reported.

It is also worth noting that the streak, by definition, is a live number. The record stands as of Sunday. The next time the bullpen takes the mound, the streak either extends or it does not.

What to watch

The immediate marker is 38 2/3 innings — the Cleveland 2017 benchmark that currently represents the longest such leaguewide streak since that season. Whether the Dodgers' bullpen clears that threshold is the first question the streak puts on the table.

Beyond the streak itself, the longer-running storyline is how the bullpen holds up as the season deepens and the workload accumulates. Klein and Scott were the names on Sunday. MLB Trade Rumors does not detail how the rest of the unit is distributed across situations, or how the club is managing the absence of a defined closer across a full schedule. Those are the questions that will answer themselves over the coming weeks — one inning at a time, scoreless or otherwise.