The Dodgers had to get up early Sunday, after their 1:40 p.m. recreation towards the Cincinnati Reds began 90 minutes early due to thunderstorms within the space.
The workforce’s bats, nevertheless, nonetheless seemed asleep in a weather-delayed defeat at Great American Ball Park, with the Dodgers falling 4-1 to the Reds to undergo a weekend collection sweep and their fifth loss in a row total.
“It just seems like we’re running cold,” supervisor Dave Roberts stated, peppered with a string of lineup questions which have turn into widespread in current weeks.
“When you’re not hitting, it certainly seems lifeless,” Roberts added. “I know it’s not from care and preparation. But the bottom line is, it’s about results. And we’re not getting them right now.”
Not even shut.
Instead, the Dodgers have endured their first five-game losing streak since 2019. They suffered their first collection sweep since final June.
And, in what has been a recurring theme through the workforce’s prolonged two-week slide (they’re 7-9 of their final 16 games), the offense remained the membership’s greatest weak spot, managing simply five hits in a recreation that was delayed for an hour earlier than the sixth inning by rain.
“It’s still a really good lineup, and we know it’s gonna flip,” second baseman Gavin Lux stated. “But yeah, I think we all expect more out of ourselves. I think everyone does.”
Even earlier than Sunday’s first pitch — which was moved up to 12:10 p.m. native time to keep away from impending storms — Roberts was bemoaning his lineup’s current hunch, struggling in his pregame deal with with reporters to reconcile how a workforce so gifted might look so listless on the plate.
“I think it’s lack of consistency of approach,” Roberts stated. “We’re trying to cover too many parts of the zone, in my opinion, and we’re missing the fastball. I think that’s the crux.”
Indeed, the fastball has been the Dodgers’ most puzzling drawback recently.
Entering Sunday, the membership was batting simply .197 towards four-seamers since May 10 (fifth-worst within the majors throughout that span), had whiffed on 27% of them (second-worst within the majors) and had been lacking myriad alternatives the place the pitch “should be moved forward,” as Roberts put it.
“They let us know,” Freeman stated, noting that the workforce’s bother towards fastballs was a subject in hitters conferences this weekend. “So we’ll try and get on the heater tomorrow.”
The Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani stands within the dugout after grounding out through the fourth inning towards the Cincinnati Reds on Sunday.
(Jeff Dean / Associated Press)
Yet, in a recreation that noticed the Dodgers (33-22) get shut out till the ninth inning Sunday, issues solely acquired worse.
Of the 28 four-seamers Reds pitcher threw within the zone, the Dodgers took 10 for strikes, fouled 9 off, whiffed on five and hit 4 into routine outs.
Not one was became a success. Not as soon as did they punish a mistake over the center.
“When you get a good pitch to hit,” Roberts stated, “you gotta hit them.”
Couple that situation with the absence of Max Muncy (who is constant to battle an indirect pressure), a lower than 100% Shohei Ohtani (who has been nursing a hamstring bruise) and nearly no constant manufacturing from the underside of the lineup (their Nos. 6-9 hitters have batted an MLB-worst .148 the previous 16 games, and had been 0 for 12 on Sunday), and the Dodgers’ juggernaut offense has out of the blue seemed extra Jello-ish in building.
Soft. Flimsy. And missing a lot consistency.
“You can’t miss balls at the belt and chase below also,” Roberts stated, noting his workforce’s penchant to make outs on pitches out of the strike zone, as effectively, in current weeks. “Bad combo.”
The Reds (23-30) took the lead Sunday with the form of rally that has eluded the Dodgers not too long ago.
In the third inning, Cincinnati scored 4 runs off Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto on 4 hits and one stroll. Three of the knocks got here with two strikes. All 4 runs scored with two outs. Roberts sounded nearly envious as he recounted the sequence postgame.
“The bottom line is that they found a way to fight with two strikes,” Roberts stated. “When you fight, you get those breaks sometimes.”
The Dodgers, alternatively, had no such luck.
In 28 at-bats between a first-inning single from Mookie Betts and a ninth-inning single from Ohtani, the Dodgers recorded simply two hits — a pair of doubles by Teoscar Hernández within the fourth and seventh innings.
Both instances, nevertheless, the workforce left Hernández stranded. And up till Freeman’s RBI double within the ninth, the membership was not solely 0 for five with runners in scoring place on Sunday (they completed one for eight), however had gone hitless in 22 straight at-bats with a runner at second or third base.
During this 16-game stretch, the Dodgers have batted simply .189 with runners in scoring place in all.
“Obviously, we want to score as many runs as we possibly can, and we haven’t been doing that the last few games,” Freeman stated. “You never know which at-bat is gonna break it open. Hopefully that [ninth-inning RBI] was the one.”
Freeman was the newest workforce member to downplay the workforce’s current struggles on the plate, insisting that such slumps are inevitable over a 162-game season, and that confidence within the clubhouse hasn’t wavered.
“I don’t think anybody needs to question the confidence in our lineup,” Freeman stated. “It’s mid-May, we’ll be fine.”
Still, because the begin of this slide on May 10, the Dodgers are actually batting .210 as a workforce (third-worst within the majors throughout that span), have 14 house runs (tied for Tenth-fewest) and are averaging simply 3.5 runs per recreation (a pointy decline from the 5.5 per recreation they had been averaging beforehand).
It hasn’t but damage their total numbers on the 12 months but. They are nonetheless second within the majors in each runs and OPS, and sixth in batting common. They additionally stay safely in first place within the National League West, holding the second-largest division lead in MLB with a 5½ recreation edge over the San Francisco Giants.
Nonetheless, when Roberts was requested if the current malaise has come as a shock to him, given the apparent expertise on his $300-million roster, the supervisor softly nodded his head.
“It does, it does,” Roberts stated. “It’s guys needing to be better. I mean, that part of it is simple. The execution part of it is harder. But having a plan and being consistent, that’s easy. It is. It really is.”
The Dodgers’ efficiency recently, nevertheless, has advised in any other case, main to the form of exasperating, prolonged lull to which their star-studded offense was supposed to be immune.
Words for Ramírez
There was an uncommon sequence close to the tip of Sunday’s recreation, after Dodgers reliever Yohan Ramírez — who hit two batters in a disastrous outing Friday — plunked two extra hitters throughout an look within the eighth inning.
While Roberts got here to the mound after Ramírez’s second hit batter, the supervisor didn’t take away the veteran right-hander from the sport.
Instead, Roberts put his arms round Ramírez — a journeyman right-hander already on his third workforce this season — and spoke into his ear for a number of moments. Then, he let Ramírez keep within the recreation and escape a bases-loaded jam with a fly out in his subsequent at-bat.
“He’s emotional and cares, and he’s trying to impress with a new ballclub,” Roberts stated. “I just tried to reassure him and give him some confidence, love on him a little bit, and try to take a little bit of pressure off.”
“You just see the player, and you kind of feel what he’s got going on in his brain, in his heart, all that stuff,” Roberts added. “Sometimes I’m sure — I’ve never thrown a major league inning — but you feel like you’re on an island. So I wanted to show that we were all behind him.”