Most people understand what a good hangover is. Many people will equate that to a night where they just had a little too much adult libations but it can come from all sorts of things. Maybe just not drinking enough water the day before to having an huge emotion experience in your life that drained you and you need time to just recover.

This 2022 Los Angeles Dodgers team seems to be suffering from a multitude of hangovers. Max Muncy has one from his jarring injury in the last game of the 2021 season. Pitchers are still seemingly dealing with not having a regular offseason. And of course, there is Freddie Freeman, who has had to deal with moving on from a 15 year relationship that he didn’t want to end.

Im not going to go into who was wrong and who was right in the Braves/Freeman relationship because A) no one really knows except the parties involved, and B) it doesn’t matter. Freeman now plays for the Dodgers, and will do so for the next five and a half years.

Understandably, it was an incredibly emotional weekend for Freeman, in which he returned to the city where he thought he would end his baseball career. None of us can understand, really, what the man was going through. One can also have thoughts on whether the emotions he showed were too many, or just right. His reactions however apparently prompted a usually PC Clayton Kershaw to say that he understands, but also hopes Freeman will be happy in L.A.

To his credit, though, Freeman has been a steady force in the Dodgers lineup. He was very good in Cincinnati, and had a huge hit for the then go-ahead run in the top of the 10th in the Dodgers big comeback win against those Braves Sunday Night. His week was so good he was recognized as the Player of the Week.

But the team as a whole seems to have hangovers, too. They fought hard against those Braves this past weekend, and won two of three against a very hot team. Then they went to Colorado, where they promptly got shut out by Chad Kuhl, a feat that a Rockies starter had never done to the Dodgers in Coors Field before. They are looking to get only their second win of 2022 in Coors Field on Wednesday evening.

So then the Dodgers will come home to face the second place San Diego Padres in what also promises to be a hard fought battle for first place. Then the Dodgers will face Colorado again, after another draining series.

Against Colorado and the Pittsburgh Pirates this season, the Dodgers are a combined 2-9. I guess the good thing is that they tend to play better against the better teams, which would be good come playoff time, but they also should be beating the lower end teams more, too.

I’ve said before that it seems funny to complain or criticize a team that is in first place in the NL West and has the second best record in the National League. But there is still something off about this team. I keep hoping that the All-Star Break will reset them, and we’ll start to see more of the Super Team that was predicted at the beginning of the season. Fingered crossed that next season, we’ll be lucky enough to complain about a World Series Championship hangover.