The Dodgers had to get up early Sunday after their 1:40 p.m. game against the Cincinnati Reds started 90 minutes early due to thunderstorms in the area.
However, the team’s bats still seemed dormant after a weather-delayed loss at Great American Ball Park, with the Dodgers falling 4-1 to the Reds to suffer a weekend series sweep and their fifth straight loss in in general.
The five-game losing streak is the longest the Dodgers have endured since 2019. The three-game sweep marked their first winless streak since last June.
And in what has been a common theme during the team’s two-week slump (they are 7-9 in their last sixteen games), offense remained the club’s biggest weakness, scoring just five goals in a match that was postponed for a while. hours before the sixth inning due to rain.
Read more: Dodgers’ James Paxton has found success despite missing a key ingredient
Even before Sunday’s first pitch — which was moved up to 12:10 a.m. local time to avoid approaching storms — manager Dave Roberts lamented the recent slump in his lineup and struggled in his pregame speech with reporters to reconcile how a such a talented team could look so lethargic. at the plate.
“I think it’s a lack of consistency in approach,” Roberts said. “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.”
The fastball has been the Dodgers’ most puzzling problem lately.
Entering Sunday, the club hit just .197 against four players since May 10 (fifth worst in the Majors during that span), had whiffed 27% of them (second worst in the Majors) and missed numerous opportunities where the pitch “needs to move forward be moved,” as Roberts put it.
Combine that with the absence of Max Muncy (who continues to battle an oblique strain), a less than 100% Shohei Ohtani (who is dealing with a hamstring injury), and almost no consistent production from the bottom of the lineup (their Nos. 6- 9 hitters have hit an MLB-worst .151 over the past 16 games), and the Dodgers’ massive offense suddenly looked more Jello-like in construction.
Soft. Thin. And it lacks much consistency.
“You can’t miss balls at the tape and you can’t chase down balls either,” Roberts said, noting his team’s tendency to also make outs on pitches outside the strike zone in recent weeks. “Bad combination.”
Sunday was the latest frustrating example.
The Dodgers got a leadoff single from Mookie Betts in the first inning, only to see Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and Teoscar Hernández record consecutive outs to end the inning.
In the second inning, Andy Pages reached base safely on an error, then Gavin Lux grounded into a double play in the next at bat.
Then, after the Dodgers went down in order in the third, the Reds staged a small-ball rally against starting pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto, stringing together four singles (three of them on two strikes) and a walk to score four runs – all with two outs across the plate.
The Dodgers’ only real scoring opportunities came when Hernández doubled in the fourth and seventh inning – the team’s only hits in a span of 28 at-bats between the first and ninth inning.
Both times, however, the team left Hernández behind, en route to finishing the day at just one for eight with runners in scoring position (the lone hit, an RBI double by Freddie Freeman, came in the ninth inning).
Read more: ‘Freak of nature’: A look at Shohei Ohtani’s best career start in his first Dodgers season
When asked if Roberts’ recent slump was a surprise given the obvious talent on his $300 million roster, the manager nodded his head somberly.
“That’s true, that’s true,” Roberts said. “It’s the guys that have to be better. I mean, that part of it is easy. The execution part of it is harder. But having a plan and being consistent, that’s easy. It is. It really is.”
However, the Dodgers’ performances of late have suggested otherwise, leading to the kind of irritating, prolonged silence that their star-studded offense should have been immune to.
Words for Ramirez
There was an unusual sequence at the end of Sunday’s game, after Dodgers reliever Yohan Ramírez — who struck two batters in a disastrous outing on Friday — threw down two more batters during an eighth-inning performance.
While Roberts took the mound after Ramírez’s second hit, the manager did not remove the veteran right-hander from the game.
Instead, Roberts wrapped his arms around Ramírez — a journeyman right-hander already on his third team this season — and spoke in his ear for a few moments. He then allowed Ramírez to stay in the game and escaped a bases-loaded jam with a flyout in his next at-bat.
Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.
This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
