ST. LOUIS — For the last two weeks, the Dodgers hadn’t felt good.
Both at the plate and behind the scenes.
Starting with last month’s trip to Denver, the club’s lineup had been in a rut, averaging barely four runs per game during a 5-9 skid that derailed their hot start to the season. Over that same period, a nasty bug had been going around the clubhouse, impacting up to 90% of the roster in the estimation of one team staff member.
Slumps and sicknesses, of course, are inevitable realities of a grueling six-month season.
Rarely, however, do teams so severely endure both at the same time.
“I know this doesn’t quantify anything, and no one will care,” veteran third baseman Max Muncy said earlier this weekend, “but for me, one of the side effects when everyone’s feeling bad is, the team doesn’t have the same joy when we show up every day.”
Which meant, as the losses piled up and the search for offense lingered, laughter and levity seemed equally short in supply.
“You have to conserve your energy, so you don’t have the same shenanigans going on in the clubhouse,” noted Muncy, who was so sick during the team’s recent homestand that he had to leave one game early and wear a heavy jacket in the dugout to regulate his body temperature.
“When you take out any of that joy that comes from being around everybody, it has a negative effect on people.”
Finally, on Sunday, such vibes began to shift.
In a 4-1 win over the Cardinals, the Dodgers did more than just snap a season-long four-game losing streak. For the first time in a few weeks, energy and enjoyment levels were pulsating through the team again.
The day started with a telling observation from manager Dave Roberts, who noticed an upbeat atmosphere around the clubhouse ahead of what he described as a “gut check” game.
“I think that there’s a sense of pride that our guys have, that they understand that enough’s enough,” Roberts said before first pitch.
“I think we were just trying to over-caffeinate this morning,” first baseman Freddie Freeman joked later. “I’m glad our aura was a little different this morning. But we try to be the same every day.”
The Dodgers made one intentional change for Sunday, debuting a new drop-kick celebration whenever they reached base.
Several veteran players were coy about the origin of the new move –– which may or may not have been inspired by something backup catcher Dalton Rushing did at the end of the previous night’s game (when he frustratedly kicked out his leg upon returning to the dugout following a game-ending strikeout).
Either way, the message it was intended to send was clear:
“We needed to kick away the negativity,” one player quipped.
That wasn’t the only lighthearted aspect of Sunday’s much-needed victory.
While the Dodgers didn’t exactly break out at the plate, they did enough to warrant a postgame media scrum with one of their top hitters. Thus, reporters initially approached Muncy in the clubhouse for an interview –– only for him to pin the task on Freeman instead.
“Freddie’s coming,” Muncy said with a laugh, before going into the dining room to drag Freeman out for the cameras. “Here he is.”
In the other corner of the locker room, Emmet Sheehan began cracking up as starting pitcher Justin Wrobleski was asked about his uniquely dominant start –– including a question about whether he realized he had failed to record any strikeouts in his scoreless six-inning outing.
“I mean, yeah,” Wrobleski said with a smirk and a shrug. “I had a lot of two-strike counts, and then they kept putting it in play. So I was like, ‘All right, I’ll take the out.’”
In much the same way, the Dodgers will happily take Sunday’s win, as well.
Their hope is that it will mark a small-but-important step toward getting back on track after the struggles of the last few weeks. All the better if it reignites the joy that had been missing on and off the field.
“Offensively, we just haven’t been very good the last week,” Freeman said. “Just call a spade a spade sometimes. There’s no way to sugarcoat it … But no one’s worried in here. And it’s good to get a win on a day game, salvage a series and hopefully start a better streak tomorrow.”
“You just have to bow your neck and find a way to win,” Roberts echoed. “Doesn’t matter how good or bad it looks, we needed a win today. So 1777859716 we can have a happy flight.”
