It was a post-season flashback, in the worst of ways.
The Dodgers’ superstars were not at their best. The lineup’s supporting cast offered little actual support. And suddenly, a costly offense that was expected to fuel a World Series chase this year instead flashed potential weaknesses that have been exploited in October’s past.
“It was a lot like last year’s playoffs,” said infielder Miguel Rojas, “when we couldn’t get it going.”
Rojas was referring to the team’s recent offensive slump, a two-week slump in which the Dodgers averaged just 3.5 runs per game while losing nine of 16, and, ahead of a series sweep over the New York Mets this week , five games in a row. (the club’s longest losing streak in the past five years).
In the grand scheme of things, it may be nothing more than a regular-season mistake for the Dodgers.
Read more: Even with less playing time, Dodgers’ Miguel Rojas has become more valuable than ever
They are still in first place in the National League West.
They are still close to making the playoffs.
They still rank in the top three in the Majors in scoring, batting average and OPS on the season.
But as Rojas pointedly noted, the recent skid had hallmarks of last year’s National League Division Series against the Arizona Diamondbacks, when the Dodgers’ offense disappeared in a decisive three-game sweep.
“We cannot rely on Shohei alone [hitting a] Homer, Freddie [hitting a] homer, while Mookie is in tears,” Rojas said. “We have to find a way to do it with a small ball as well. The little ways to play the game. On the defensive. Running the base.”
And, as the first two months of the season have shown, getting more production out of the bottom half of the lineup.
So far, the Dodgers couldn’t have asked for much more from their top-tier bats — a group that includes Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Will Smith and, depending on the skill of the opposing pitcher, either Teoscar Hernández or Max Muncy.
From Nos. 1-5 in the lineup, the Dodgers are a distant first in batting average (.299, 18 points better than any other team) and OPS (.902, 87 points better than the nearest club). They are second in RBIs (185) and third in home runs (52). They have the best walk-to-strikeout ratio. They are a headache to compete against every time the lineup flips.
However, once you get past the first five spots of the order, the firepower starts to run out.
Each night, numbers 6 through 9 in the Dodgers’ order will be filled by a combination of Kiké Hernández, Gavin Lux, Andy Pages, Jason Heyward, Chris Taylor, Austin Barnes and Rojas.
The hope was that that group would provide enough positional versatility, platoon advantages and timely offense to support the star-studded core the Dodgers built them around.
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Instead, they have performed as one of the weakest offensive units in the Majors.
The Dodgers’ numbers 6-9 have combined to hit .200, fourth-worst in the MLB. Their .586 OPS ranks only one spot better. They score a lot (26%, 10th highest). They rarely walk (7%, 10th lowest). And outside of Rojas (who is hitting .284 with a .790 OPS), no one else in the group is providing consistent offense.
There are top-heavy setups. And then there are this year’s Dodgers.
The team’s recent 16-game hiatus illustrated the consequences such shortcomings can cause.
Down the stretch, the Dodgers’ top half slipped out of top gear. Betts and Ohtani cooled off somewhat. Freeman and Smith suffered mini-slumps. Muncy was sidelined by an oblique tension.
The bigger problem, however, was that the bottom half provided virtually no production to support them. The Dodgers’ Nos. 6-9 batted .187 during that span. At one point during the losing streak, they were on a combined 0-for-34 skid, going nearly three entire games without a single goal.
As a result, the team’s offense came to an abrupt halt (they outscored by four points in only six of sixteen games). The problems that had doomed them in last year’s playoffs (and sometimes the two postseasons before that) were back in full force.
“We need them,” manager Dave Roberts said last week of the bottom half’s problems. “I just don’t want to put it on the shoulders of those guys over there. But we try to find someone who will excite us.
That’s why, as the July 30 MLB trade deadline looms, the Dodgers’ most fundamental need is already clear.
Either their current cast of bottom half hitters finds some sort of breakthrough. Or the Dodgers will likely have no choice but to look for an impact bat or two, potentially requiring further roster reinforcement even after their $1.4 billion spending spree in the offseason.
“I think the guys at the bottom, outside of probably Miguel Rojas, are just underperforming,” Roberts said. “This is the time, the guys have had enough at-bats where there needs to be some adjustments, for sure [better] performance.”
This week’s series in New York offered some hope.
Heyward, Lux and Taylor (on a bunt-squeeze play) all hit late singles in the Dodgers’ slip-snapping, come-from-behind victory Tuesday afternoon. Beats by Pages, Vargas, Rojas and Barnes in the nightcap of Tuesday’s doubleheader secured another victory.
Wednesday was one of the best games the Dodgers’ bottom half had played all year, highlighted by four hits from Rojas, a home run from Vargas and two-hit efforts from Heyward and Kiké Hernández.
Even on a day when Betts and Freeman went hitless, the Dodgers’ 16 hits (10 of which came from Nos. 6-9 hitters) tied for their third-highest total of the year.
Read more: Will Smith homers twice as Dodgers complete Mets sweep with loss
“There’s obviously been a lot of talk about the bottom end of the order,” Roberts said Wednesday. “But today you can see good things happen when they take productive at-bats, get hits and draw walks.”
Yet that was just one strong game, one rebound series.
Now that the season is already two months in, production at the lowest level remains a major déjà vu-inducing problem.
And as the Dodgers chart a course from now until October, this may be the biggest problem they will have to solve.
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
