They had the bases loaded with no outs in the second inning. A leadoff double in the fourth. A triple with one out in the sixth.
All Saturday night Dodgers threatened to launch his offensive at Great American Ball Park. They had opportunities all night to bury the Cincinnati Reds with their star-studded lineup.
But at every crucial point the offense failed to deliver, continuing its trend of situational bad hits to lose a fourth straight game. 3-1 in front of a sold out crowd of 41,880 people.
“We just couldn’t capitalize offensively,” manager Dave Roberts said after his club went 0 for 7 with runners in scoring position. “One part is creating those situations. The other part is finishing those innings.”
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In fact, so far this season, one statistic has defined the Dodgers’ success (or failures) more than anything else.
During their 12-11 start they hit just .244 with runners in scoring position, the 19th-best mark in the majors over that span.
During a 14-2 stretch from April 21 to May 9, they hit an MLB-best .328 with runners in scoring position, apparently addressing their situational hitting issues by reducing strikeouts and showing up at opportune times. .
However, in the two weeks since, the Dodgers’ batting average with runners in scoring position has plummeted again. Since May 10, they are hitting just .194 in those spots, better than only two teams (the Angels and Texas Rangers) in that span.
Unsurprisingly, the team’s record has declined as a result, the Dodgers 7-8 in their last 15 games, a stretch in which their powerful lineup has managed just 3.7 runs per game.
“We’re just not hitting like we would,” Roberts said. “But yeah, it’s been a two-week period where we’ve shown a lot of inconsistencies.”
Situational hitting wasn’t the problem for the Dodgers (33-21) on Saturday.
starting pitcher Walker Buhler couldn’t replicate the dominance he showed in six scoreless innings against the Reds (22-30) in Los Angeles last week, and instead was tagged for three runs in 5 2/3 innings in a revenge series the Reds have secured and they can sweep on Sunday.
“I was making some chicken salad out of chicken shit for a second,” said Buehler, who had limited the Reds’ damage to a pair of solo home runs before allowing a double and an RBI single to end the day. in the sixth.
“So that last run in the sixth is just a little mistake, just in terms of pitch selection and back-to-back fighting a little more than it should.”
The lineup also remained far from top speed.
Shohei Ohtani He tripled in the sixth but struck out three times, leaving his batting average over the last nine games at .206.
Will Smith singled leading off the second (and scored the team’s only run on a Jason Hayward double play ball) and Freddie Freeman doubled in the fourth, but failed to do anything else, continuing the slow performances of May (both are batting under .250 this month).
Even Mookie Betting He failed to spark, being intercepted at first base in the first inning after his only hit of the night.
Despite that, the Dodgers had opportunities.
However, turning them into careers once again proved to be an unsolvable challenge.
“It’s more about the way we use bats,” Roberts said, rather than an isolated problem with an obvious solution.
“The piece of paper will say, yes, we have talent, this, that and the other, but the game will determine (that),” Betts said. “There are no words anyone can say that will make us suddenly start hitting. If that were the case, we would have done it a long time ago. So it’s just part of the game. You just have to find a way.”
Situational hitting can be a fickle statistic in baseball. And Octobers aside, he’s typically been a strength for the Dodgers.
They have ranked in the top 10 in each of the last five seasons. They entered Saturday in the top half of the majors at 14th, with a .258 mark that was actually better than their .255 overall average.
However, the problem has plagued them for the last few postseasons, and it makes any skid like this that much more frustrating, emerging as a potential weakness in the playoffs for a team navigating championship-or-bust expectations.
The good news for the Dodgers: They still have a sizable lead in the National League West, five and a half games ahead of the San Francisco Giants. They will eventually get injured third baseman Max Muncy back, although his return (once expected to come as soon as this week) has been delayed by continued discomfort in his strained oblique. Above all, his recent malaise still feels like a temporary blip, more of a frustrating obstacle in his season than a major cause for alarm.
However, that doesn’t lessen the frustration over Saturday’s loss, the latest in what has become another mediocre stretch for a team capable of so much more.
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“It’s just part of the game,” Betts said. “There’s nothing anyone can really say or do.”
The star leadoff hitter then stopped and finished his post-game scrum with this parting line.
“Well, I guess there’s something,” Betts said. “Just do it”.
The Dodgers haven’t done that lately, leading to their longest losing streak in an up-and-down start to the season.
Ohtani nursing hamstring
Ohtani has been recovering from a hamstring contusion, Roberts said after the game, but the Dodgers don’t seem too worried.
During his triple in the sixth inning on Saturday, Ohtani was noticeably running at less than his top speed and appeared to slowly get up after sliding toward the base.
However, Roberts said the slugger has simply been running with a “governor” since he was hit in the leg by a tee shot on last week’s homestand.
“Today was better than yesterday… but we didn’t want to put any pressure on him,” Roberts said. “The good thing is it wasn’t a strain. It was a concussion that we’re just trying to deal with.”
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This story originally appeared on Los Angeles Times.