Dodgers current slump a major issue in bid for historical three-peat: ‘Tough to compete’

Through the first three weeks of the season, the Dodgers had the most dangerous offense in baseball.

Over three frustrating weeks since, they’ve been perhaps the most mediocre unit in the majors.

Reconciling the difference has become the most pressing storyline surrounding the team to this point of the campaign –– raising questions about what has gone wrong lately, how fixable the lineup’s problems are, and whether the Dodgers’ true talent level is closer to what they did out of the gate or what they have endured more recently.

“Just kind of as a unit, I don’t think that we’re one piece right now,” manager Dave Roberts said Sunday, after a 7–2 loss to the Atlanta Braves that dropped the Dodgers to 9–12 since their offensive slump began. 

“It’s not from lack of effort,” he added. But still, “we’ve been in this funk for quite some time.”

And the longer it has gone on, the more difficult it has become to pinpoint a specific answer.

“As a group, we’re just going through a rough stretch,” third baseman Max Muncy said. “And, you know, that’s part of baseball.”

This has been the most common refrain from Dodgers personnel since their struggles at the plate started.

Hot Start

At the end of play on April 20, the club led MLB in virtually every statistical category, including runs-per-game (6.04), batting average (.293), slugging percentage (.507), home runs (42) and OPS (.873). They also ranked first in average exit velocity (91.3 mph), top-five in hard-hit rate (44.4%) and easily outpaced everyone else in all-encompassing weighted metrics like wRC+ (144, meaning they were 44% more productive than league average).

In hindsight, much of that was unsustainable.

A regression to the mean was probably always coming.

“It doesn’t matter how talented you are,” infielder Miguel Rojas said last week. “You are always gonna go through moments where you’re not doing it offensively.”

Still, how quickly the Dodgers have hurtled back to earth has nonetheless been jarring.

Cold Streak

Since concluding a series in Denver last month, the team ranks just 24th in scoring (3.89 runs-per-game), 25th in batting average (.228), a stunning 29th in slugging percentage (.340), and has hit only 11 home runs (second-fewest in that span).

Their quality of contact metrics have fallen off, dipping to 13th in exit velocity (89.4 mph) and 15th in hard-hit rate (40.4%).

Their wRC+ in that span is 89 –– 11% below league average, and fifth-worst among all MLB offenses.

“I think we have some guys that aren’t in the spot that they want to be in right now, and they’re trying to figure that out,” Muncy said. “It’s kind of tough to compete when you’re trying to figure things out.”

Indeed, the Dodgers’ problems appear to be rooted in simultaneous swing problems from much of their lineup.

Star-Less Power

During this three-week cold spell, Muncy and Andy Pages are the only hitters on the club with multiple home runs or an individual slugging percentage above .400.

For all the other superstar-caliber talent around them, no one else has been able to get going.

That includes, first and foremost, Shohei Ohtani.

He has batted just .200 over his last 18 games, and has only one home run in his last 102 plate appearances overall. He is still drawing walks and getting on-base, even as he works through what he said last week were flaws in his bat path –– as well as the burdensome return to full-time two-way duties. 

Still, for so much of his first two years with the team, the four-time MVP could just about drag the Dodgers out of offensive lulls single-handedly. This time, his poor production has had the opposite effect, almost setting the tone for the team’s recent all-around decline.

“It’s kind of his burden, in the sense of the expectations for him,” Roberts said. “It certainly helps when he’s doing what he’s been doing for quite some time. The energy frees other guys up.” 

“But,” Roberts quickly countered, “there are still eight other guys that are more than capable.”

If only they, too, weren’t scuffling.

Freddie Freeman has been grinding with his swing lately, so much so that he changed up his batting stance last week. That offered some temporary reprieve, triggering a seven-game hitting streak for the veteran first baseman. But then, he went 0-for-6 in the team’s last two games against the Braves this weekend; his first time going hitless in consecutive contests since the opening two days of the year.

Kyle Tucker and Will Smith have been in similar spots, searching for their best swings while batting .238 and .225 over this stretch, respectively.

Then there’s Teoscar Hernández, who has been mired in such a bad skid (hitting just .196 over his last 26 games) that Roberts suggested he could get more days off moving forward “to work things out” behind the scenes.

“He’s certainly missing pitches that he should hit. He’s fouling them off whether they’re spin or fastballs,” Roberts said. “And I think he’s a little too passive at times, getting behind a lot early. It’s hard to hit 0–1.”

Team Struggles

Roberts has made similar observations about the offense as a whole. In his view, the Dodgers either haven’t attacked enough pitches over the plate, or looked almost “passive” when they have tried to punish them.

“You should always be ready to hit,” he said last week. “I don’t think hitting should be looked at in a passive light. And I do think at times we’re being passive. You should always be ready to fire on your pitch.”

That’s harder to do, though, when a team has as many hitters out of whack with their mechanics as the Dodgers seem to right now.

Fixing that dynamic is their primary goal. But finding specific solutions for everyone’s individual swings, while also maintaining a consistent team-wide approach in the box, hasn’t proved easy.

“We’ve preached in the past sometimes, that you got to just forget about everything you’re doing off the field, and when you get in the batter’s box, you just have to compete,” Muncy said. “It’s probably something we’re going to harp on a little bit again right now, because there are a lot of guys trying to just find some mechanics. And it’s hard to hit when you’re doing that.”

If this all sounds somewhat familiar, it’s because the Dodgers battled similar issues over the second half of last year –– when they once again went from having the most potent lineup in the majors, to one that limped into the playoffs and struggled to consistently produce during a pitching-led run to a second-straight World Series.

That context is why their hot start this year was so refreshing; and why their recent regression, even after just a few weeks, feels so foreboding.

Hope Coming

Eventually, more of their stars should get back on track.

The return of Mookie Betts (who has been out since early April) also figures to help.

But already, a team singularly focused on October success has been reminded that, at any given moment, they can go cold for a prolonged period.

Three weeks like this in the playoffs, after all, could easily derail their three-peat ambitions.

And even if they get back on track soon, the fear of more sudden slumps will now loom for the rest of the season.

“It’s hard to kind of articulate,” Roberts said. “There’s some empty at-bats. There’s some early outs that are just not quality outs. There’s the passing the baton to the next guy. Sometimes it just doesn’t happen … So, yeah, we just got to keep going.”

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