Dodgers option Emmet Sheehan to minors after trade deadline on heels of Tarik Skubal acquisition

The arrival of Tarik Skubal to the Los Angeles Dodgers made Emmet Sheehan expendable.

A disastrous outing the day before the trade deadline appears to have sealed his fate. Manager Dave Roberts told reporters Monday that the Dodgers are optioning Sheehan to to Triple-A Oklahoma City. By optioning Sheehan, the Dodgers send him directly to the minor leagues without him having to clear waivers.

Roberts delivered the news minutes after the conclusion of the MLB trade deadline.

“It’s going to give him a chance to reset and get out of this hotbox of performance,” Roberts said. “Obviously, we believe in him. We’ve shown that year in and year out. …

“We’ve just got to get him back to being who he is.”

The Dodgers, obviously, had the option of shopping Sheehan at the trade deadline. They either declined to do so or didn’t see a deal that they liked enough to part with the 26-year-old starter.

Sheehan’s in his third season as a starter for the Dodgers. He posted a 2.82 regular-season ERA in 15 appearances, including 12 starts during last season’s run to a World Series title. He moved into a bullpen role for the playoffs where he struggled with an 8.59 ERA in 7 1/3 postseason innings.

This season has been the worst of his career, and the Dodgers added two-time Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal to an already stacked rotation via a Saturday trade with the Detroit Tigers.

On Sunday, with Skubal making his dugout debut for the Dodgers, Sheehan gave up five earned runs in 2 2/3 innings in an 8-4 loss to the Boston Red Sox. He allowed three solo home runs in the third inning before he was pulled. The effort inflated his ERA to 5.29 for the season.

Roberts hinted at Sheehan’s fate in his postgame remarks.

“When you’re pitching in big-league games, you’ve got to get guys out,” Roberts told reporters Sunday, per The Athletic’s Fabian Ardaya. “I don’t know where we go from here.”

So Skubal effectively moves to the top of the rotation and will make his Dodgers debut on Tuesday against the Chicago Cubs. And Sheehan is bumped from the bottom of the rotation to the minor leagues.

The Dodgers now project to run a rotation that features All-Star and reigning World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto and All-Star Justin Wrobleski in addition to Skubal. And they hope to return two-time Cy Young winner Blake Snell, former All-Star Tyler Glasnow and, of course, two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani, who was in Cy Young contention before the Dodgers shut him down from pitching in early July.

The latter three are all sidelined from pitching with ailments. Any or all of them could return at some point during the stretch run of the regular season for for the postseason.

Sheehan, meanwhile, will look to work back into form in the minors. His fate beyond that with the Dodgers or another team is uncertain.