Heading into Monday night’s series opener against the Cincinnati Reds at Dodger Stadium, the Dodgers had a grand total of 10 stolen bases on the season. This had them tied for last in the National League (with the Mets) and tied for next to last in the MLB (the Baltimore Orioles had only six stolen bases).

To be brutally honest, this is simply unacceptable for a team with guys named Joc Pederson, Yasiel Puig, Trayce Thompson, Carl Crawford and Howie Kendrick in their lineup and a guy named Dave Roberts, who was known as an outstanding base stealer during his playing days, as their manager. In fact, of the 25 guys on the Dodgers roster, only seven had a stolen base and six of those seven only one.

(Note: Culberson was optioned to Triple-A Oklahoma City on May 18)

It’s not that the Dodgers don’t have the potential to steal more bases, it’s that they weren’t even trying to steal bases.

While there are many who are critical of Puig’s occasional TOOTBLAN, at least he is trying. He also leads the Dodgers in stolen bases with four. (Photo credit – K.C. Alfred)

Confused over this somewhat embarrassing situation, I asked Roberts prior to Monday night’s game if he was planning to do something about his team’s lack of stolen base attempts. His answer may surprise you.

“No,” answered the Dodgers skipper bluntly. “I think that we can do a better job as far as our stolen base percentage but we’re just not wired to steal a bunch of bases. We can pick our spots but I think then you start trying to force things and it just doesn’t make sense for our roster construction.”

I went from being confused to being dumbfounded.

During the 2014 season, current Dodgers center fielder Joc Pederson became only the fourth player in Triple-A Pacific Coast League history to hit 30 home runs and steal 30 bases and by every indication it appeared that the Dodgers finally had their first homegrown base stealer in decades. Yet since his call up to the big leagues on September 1, 2014, the 24-year-old Palo Alto, California native had stolen only five bases while being caught eight times. Now granted, MLB catchers are far better at throwing out would be base stealers than Triple-A catchers, but really? To go from 30 stolen bases in a season to only five and attempting only 13 in 212 major league games played and 769 total plate appearances?

It goes without saying that the Dodgers Achilles Heel is their inability to hit with runners in scoring position; in fact, their .239 batting average with RISP ranks seventh in the NL and 12th in the MLB. But it only stands to reason that this batting average would (or at least should) go up exponentially if they were to put more runners into scoring position by stealing more bases, right?

Lo and behold that very night the Dodgers stole not one by two bases – one by Howie Kendrick in the fourth inning and another by Trayce Thompson in the sixth inning. And though neither Kendrick nor Thompson came around to score, it was refreshing to at least see the Dodgers attempting to steal some bases.

But wait, there’s more!

During the fourth inning of Tuesday night’s game against those same Reds, Pederson easily stole third base off of Reds rookie right-hander Daniel Wright, who was making his MLB debut. I mean Joc absolutely picked Wright’s pocket. In fact, Pederson got a rolling start off of Wright and was less than 10 feet from the bag when Reds catcher Tucker Barnhart made an ill-advised throw to try and nail the speedy Pederson. Barnhart’s errant throw got past Reds third baseman Eugenio Suarez allowing Joc to score the (then) tying run in the eventual 8-2 Dodgers victory. Barnhart did get a little redemption, however, when he caught Dodgers catcher Yasmani Grandal attempting to steal second base on a missed sacrifice bunt attempt by pitcher Mike Bolsinger that resulted in a strike-’em-out / throw-’em-out double play to end that same inning.

Pederson easily stole third base on Tuesday night. Could this be the beginning of the rewiring of the Dodgers running game? (Photo credit – Jon SooHoo)

In no way am I even remotely suggesting that my question to Dave Roberts caused he or Dodgers first base coach George Lombard to try to steal these bases, but whatever the reason is for the Dodgers sudden “rewiring,” I like it!