Dodgers need to trade for another ace, which they failed to do last year

A barking line of dogs paraded through the Dodger Stadium field before Saturday’s game, but the upcoming midseason break is an entirely different animal.

It feels like groundhog day.

The Dodgers are in the same needy spot as last July. A playoff team that needs starting pitching. Only a handful of games behind the best teams in baseball, but at least one strong arm away from a competitive autumn.

It’s just like last season, only minus Clayton Kershaw for a least a month and Zack Greinke for at least forever.

It’s groundhog day, only more desperate, which means it’s even more ominous, because everyone knows what happened last year.

Nothing happened. Cole Hamels didn’t happen. Johnny Cueto didn’t happen. David Price didn’t happen.

Hoping to protect the organization’s top prospects, baseball boss Andrew Friedman bypassed the available stars and chose instead to build a cheap and rickety bridge to October. That bridge eventually collapsed under the weight of Mat Latos and Alex Wood, leaving the team in another pile of smoldering playoff dust.

Think the Dodgers could have used Hamels? Since being acquired by the Texas Rangers at last year’s deadline, Hamels is 16-3 with a 3.41 earned-run average while leading the Rangers to the best record in the American League.

Maybe the Dodgers needed Cueto? Since last year’s trading deadline, even though he struggled during the regular season in Kansas City, he’s a combined 17-8 with a 3.34 ERA while winning a World Series game with the Royals and leading the San Francisco Giants to the best record in baseball.

How about David Price, would that have worked? He was traded to Toronto, ended up in Boston, and during that time is 17-7 with a 3.73 ERA.

So here we are again, and Dodgers fans can only hope that, in his second season, Friedman has a better understanding of this market’s win-now mandate and can use his giant brain trust — the Dodgers have more “general managers” than bench players — to figure out how to fill a hole that remains even deeper than ever.

With Kershaw’s injury and Greinke’s absence, the Dodgers will not win a playoff series without a least one more veteran front-line starter, if not two. If it was true last year, it’s absolutely true this year, placing serious pressure on Friedman to throw what would be the biggest pitch of the season.

And, no, don’t buy the recent spin out of Chavez Ravine that Hyun-Jin Ryu and Brandon McCarthy are the answer. Having witnessed each of their most recent starts, the guess here is that their full recoveries from shoulder and elbow surgeries won’t happen until next season.

On Thursday, in his first game since the end of the 2014 season, Ryu struggled with his velocity in allowing the San Diego Padres six runs in 4 2/3 innings. The Dodgers said they loved his peformance, although observers weren’t exactly sure why.

On Saturday, in his second start after sitting out more than a year because of elbow ligament-replacement surgery, McCarthy allowed the Padres three runs in five innings and was pulled after 77 pitches in the Dodgers’ 4-3 victory.

The ticket-holding dogs who filled the pavilion as part of the “Pups at the Park’’ promotion had barely been ordered to “sit’’ before McCarthy allowed a first-inning walk to Travis Jankowski and a two-run homer to Yangervis Solarte. Then, as soon as the Dodgers took a 3-2 lead in the fourth, McCarthy gave it back in the fifth by allowing a couple of hits featuring a soft run-scoring single to center by Jankowski.

“Today I felt like I was throwing a football,’’ said McCarthy, who broke enough tackles to get the win after the Dodgers took the lead in the bottom of the fifth.

Added Manager Dave Roberts: “He really didn’t have command of much today. To expect him to be sharp as he hits the ground running is unfair.’’

Unfair for McCarthy, unfair for Ryu, and unfair to the Dodgers relievers. The early exit by McCarthy meant that the Dodgers haven’t had a seven-inning outing from a starter not named Kershaw since May 14, and are without a seven-inning outing from Kershaw since June 20.

Enter the bullpen, which has been brilliant, but which is also been increasingly overworked. The once-maligned group began the day leading the National League relievers with a 2.89 ERA and an amazing .199 batting average by opponents. But the Dodgers relievers also ranked sixth in the league with 293 innings, one of only two teams in the top six with a winning record. They have pitched in nearly 50 more innings than the bullpen of the division-leading Giants.

“You do see the innings start to accumulate, you take the first half to the second half, that’s a lot of innings,’’ said Roberts.

Roberts said he feels that if the team’s starters were all healthy and at at full speed, the team wouldn’t need another starter, but that’s not going to be the case. Ryu and McCarthy won’t be truly back until next year. The Dodgers need somebody, or somebodies, now.

“This is not a group of five horses that are healthy and happy and have been here all year,’’ McCarthy said. “It’s guys that are kind of, it’s a real hodgepodge.’’

This year’s trading deadline was pushed back to Aug. 1 so it doesn’t occur on a busy Sunday. This means Friedman will be working on an extra day’s rest, and here’s hoping he uses it. The Dodgers need another ace, all right, and it needs to be him.

Follow Bill Plaschke on Twitter @BillPlaschke