The baseball season is a long and grueling 162-game trek that often is a war of attrition. The last team standing at the end of October is not necessarily the “best team,” but the one that is best able to survive the injury bug. For the Los Angeles Dodgers, that bug is biting pretty hard right now.

The rate at which injuries have ravaged the Dodgers, particularly on the mound, at this early juncture, is particularly concerning. The club’s pitching depth was already hurting, with many talented arms on the shelf due to surgeries and lingering issues from last season. Now, two other early-season injuries in the starting rotation have truly threatened the team’s ability to repeat as World Series champions.

The rotation currently houses just three healthy arms: Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Roki Sasaki, and Dustin May after both Blake Snell and now Tyler Glasnow have landed on the injured list with shoulder inflammation, a precarious diagnosis that could require just a little bit of rest to get right, or could foreshadow a much more serious concern.

In the short term, the absence of those two aces will put more pressure on May and the Dodgers’ two Japanese imports … which should increase the concern even further, as both Yamamoto and Sasaki are already adapting to pitching every fifth day as opposed to the customary once-a-week schedule in Japan. That added workload could impact their performance while also exposing them to more injury risk.

The injuries to Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow predictably threaten the Dodgers’ chances of a World Series repeat

On pure talent alone, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow are two of the most talented pitchers in all of baseball. Snell is a two-time Cy Young winner, while Glasnow has the stuff to take home such an award if he could ever remain on the mound over the course of a full season.

And therein lies the rub. The Dodgers rewarded Snell this offseason with a five-year, $182 million deal that already looks like a massive error. Despite his two Cy Young trophies, Snell has only topped the 180-inning threshold twice, with every other season seeing him tally 129.1 innings or less.

Glasnow’s durability issues have been even worse. Despite his electric stuff, the massive right-hander has only topped 100 innings pitched in three of his previous nine seasons, with his career high of 134 innings pitched coming just last season.

The lengthy injury history for both suggests that these bouts of shoulder inflammation will not be short-lived. That’s bad news for a Dodgers team that, despite name value, has put up an average performance in the rotation, ranking 15th in the majors with a 3.99 ERA at the end of April.

The longer this pair of aces is out of action, the more the Dodgers will have to rely on less-than-ideal reinforcements. In the short-term, bullpen games will be necessary to bridge the gap, but if these maladies extend deeper into the season, the Dodgers are looking at steep drop-offs from the depth starters that will be called upon to eat these innings.

First, Justin Wrobleski, who has already been used once as a spot starter, will likely get a call. His 5.71 ERA and 1:1 K/BB ratio at Triple-A Oklahoma City shouldn’t inspire much confidence and would be a clear downgrade from the likes of Snell and Glasnow.

Second, Clayton Kershaw is on the mend and working his way back with a target return in May or June. The 37-year-old franchise icon will be a welcome sight back in Dodger blue; however, asking him to pitch every fifth day for the majority of the season and deep into October is a tall ask at this point in his career.

The veteran southpaw has had his own durability concerns, and his rapidly declining fastball velocity, which fell to 89.8 miles per hour last season, down from his peak of 94.4 miles per hour, makes him a tough bet to consistently get outs anymore. HIs role was supposed to be that of the occasional spot starter, and now he’s staring down the barrel of being asked to do so much more.

The NL West is shaping up to be a real dogfight, with every team save for the lowly Rockies looking at making a run for the division crown. The Dodgers being without two of their very best starters will make their road back to the playoffs and through the October gauntlet that much more difficult.

Without a relatively quick turnaround from these superstar starters and/or a big deadline deal to acquire reinforcements, the Dodgers’ pathway to repeat as World Series champions looks murky at best.