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Edwin Díaz pointed to his slider as the root cause of his latest blown save, per staff reporting at Dodger Blue. After the Dodgers dropped their seventh straight game Friday — a 4-3 walk-off loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks — Díaz acknowledged that the pitch he threw to Ryan Waldschmidt on the game-winning two-run homer caught too much of the plate. It wasn’t a mystery pitch or a bad break. It was a slider that didn’t slide enough, and Díaz knows it.

Díaz has been here before — and that’s part of what makes this concerning. The right-hander came to the Dodgers with a career that includes both the highest of highs and some genuinely rough stretches. He was the most dominant closer in baseball during his time with the Mets in 2022, posting a 1.31 ERA with 32 saves and earning his second All-Star nod. But Mets fans also remember the disastrous 2019 season when his ERA ballooned to 5.59 and his slider lost its bite entirely. When Díaz’s slider is right — sharp, late-breaking, disappearing below the zone — he’s nearly unhittable. When it flattens out and catches the middle of the plate, even average hitters can do damage. That’s exactly what happened Friday night. Díaz’s slider has always been the swing-and-miss pitch that makes his fastball play up. Without it, he’s a different pitcher.

Waldschmidt, for his part, did what any competent hitter does with a flat slider over the plate — he drove it out. The young Diamondbacks outfielder has been coming into his own this season, and tagging a closer like Díaz for a walk-off bomb is the kind of moment that can accelerate a player’s confidence. But the story here isn’t really about Waldschmidt. It’s about whether Díaz can find his slider again before these blown saves pile up to a point where the Dodgers have to rethink their ninth-inning plan.

I think the fact that Díaz identified the problem so directly is actually a small positive. He didn’t deflect or blame the umpire or talk about bad luck. He said the slider wasn’t effective and the pitch to Waldschmidt was poorly located. That kind of self-awareness matters. The question is whether this is a mechanical issue he and the pitching staff can correct quickly, or whether it’s something more persistent — a feel problem, a confidence thing, or even a physical limitation that’s preventing the pitch from breaking the way it needs to.

For the Dodgers, this is getting uncomfortable. Seven straight losses is the worst stretch of the 2026 season, and the closer situation is a big part of why. We have arms elsewhere in the bullpen, but Díaz was brought in specifically to lock down the ninth. If his slider doesn’t come back, the front office and coaching staff will need to have a real conversation about alternatives — and soon. The Dodgers can absorb a rough week in August. They can’t absorb a closer who doesn’t trust his best pitch heading into October.

Source(s): Staff (Dodger Blue) | First reported: August 8, 2026 5:13 PM UTC

God Bless and Go Dodgers