How Justin Wrobleski went from demotion to

Dodgers left-hander Justin Wrobleski might have been content with his efficiency the first couple months of the season. After all, he’d come into the yr combating for a rotation spot, and he’d shown in that time that he was prepared to be a full-time major-league starter.

That wasn’t enough.

While still holding onto his id as a pitcher who goes proper at hitters, over Wrobleski’s last two begins, he tallied 20 strikeouts.

“I think we’re just doing a good job with the plan,” Wrobleski said last week, days before he was named an All-Star. “I feel like I’m continuing to get better at knowing where to go with two strikes, knowing where to go versus a certain hitter with two strikes and just kind of reading the game.”

Wrobleski is the only Dodgers pitcher set to seem in Tuesday’s All-Star Game in Philadelphia. Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani’s schedules didn’t line up — and Ohtani finally pulled out of All-Star actions altogether in order to have his left knee drained on Sunday.

The story of how Wrobleski acquired there, in his first full season in the rotation, after debuting two years in the past, consists of lots of twists and turns.

“It’s a chronicle story in his young career, the down to up, but at the end of the day, he’s been a rock for us these first three months,” Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior said in a dialog with The Times. “Was hoping he got in on the first set of announcements, but at the end of the day, he’s an All-Star, and he’s earned every bit of it.”

When Wrobleski wasn’t included on the initial NL All-Star roster, the Dodgers teaching workers went to work lobbying for him to be a alternative participant. Manager Dave Roberts publicly made the case for Wrobleski and nearer Tanner Scott whenever he had the prospect.

Then, a week later, Wrobleski (10-2, 2.69 ERA) acquired the call after Reds right-hander Chase Burns bowed out because of tightness in his groin.

“He’s done so many intangible things that I think get lost in the shuffle of numbers and metrics,” Prior said. “But he’s eaten innings, he’s provided length for us when we needed length. He went toe-to-toe with [Phillies three-time All-Star Zack] Wheeler. He went toe-to-toe with [José] Soriano when he was dealing with the Angels, kept us in ballgames.”

Admittedly, a yr and a half in the past, Prior wouldn’t have imagined Wrobleski can be an apparent All-Star decide this shortly.

The tipping level got here when Wrobleski surrendered eight runs to the Nationals in his first major-league start of the 2025 season. And it didn’t help that his last start of the earlier season was a 10-run slog against the Diamondbacks.

“It was a long, raw emotional sit down with him,” Prior said. “And [Roberts] and I, and [assistant pitching coach Connor McGuiness] and the staff, we left with like, ‘Which way is this going to go?’”

But persistence has been a hallmark of Wrobleski’s profession, courting to his faculty years, when he infamously bounced back from a car hitting him on a scooter, and a baseball breaking his jaw. He also underwent Tommy John surgical procedure two months before the Dodgers chosen him in the eleventh spherical of the 2021 MLB draft.

So, committing to a supply change last April wasn’t all that intimidating.

Wrobleski returned to the majors in principally a bullpen function. And his steadiness in those shorter outings culminated in a strong postseason run that included 4 scoreless appearances in the World Series.

“We talk about, who can you depend on to not let the moment get too big?” Prior said. “And I think Wrobo had proved that all the way through September, but clearly proved that the moment is not too big for him to continue to make pitches. And that was exciting to see, too, as a staff.”

Still, Wrobleski wasn’t assured a rotation function in 2026. And Prior was frank about that over the offseason.

Wrobleski’s first outing of 2026 was in reduction, but the Dodgers had earmarked him as their sixth starter for the second flip in the rotation.

In his first 5 begins, Wrobleski posted an eye-popping 0.56 ERA.

His swing-and-miss charge and strikeouts have been down, but pitching to smooth contact was getting him optimistic outcomes. The most evident instance got here against the Cardinals in early May, when he threw six shutout innings without recording a punchout.

Wrobleski wasn’t going to coast on that early success, however. He saved fine-tuning his supply and adjusting his pitch combine, proper through a tough patch in late May, and into a constant June.

“He went from paring down his arsenal to kind of two pitches, to regrow his arsenal while he’s learning how to pitch at this level,” Prior said. “I think the big thing is now these guys have different looks.”

Throughout the yr, Wrobleski’s four-seam fastball and slider have accomplished the heavy lifting. But the remainder of his secondary pitch combine has been a shifting goal.

He and the pitching coaches have talked through the most efficient use of his curveball. He began integrating his sinker more persistently in late April, particularly against left-handed hitters. He’s tinkered with different grips for his changeup, a pitch he began deploying more in mid-May. Three weeks in the past, he launched a sweeper. And in his past two begins, he’s thrown that pitch 19 occasions.

“At the heart of it, though, is he never lets off the gas pedal,” Prior said. “He just gets the ball, he’s on the rubber, he puts the hitter on defense from the get-go before they’ve even seen a pitch. And that’s something that not everybody can do.”

So, despite the journey, when Wrobleski appears to be like back at the pitcher he was a yr and a half in the past, he doesn’t see a full overhaul.

“Same guy but different, I guess,” he said. “It’s crazy. I’ve had to go through a lot of small tweaks and changes. And it’s just all been about just having belief that I could continue to do it. And I knew that there were a lot of things that I could do just to get better, and I wasn’t as far away as maybe it seemed on the outside — or, as people thought it was.

“I felt like I was close, that whole time, even though the results weren’t really there. It’s been cool to see the results come.”