World Series champion Dodgers are stuck in a rut to start September.
Los Angeles has lost four in a row against last place-teams.
$72 million reliever Tanner Scott has struggled mightily in recent months.
Yes, the defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers are going through it. And while a title defense that’s been injury-wracked and arrhythmic from the jump has kept them from pulling away from the San Diego Padres, what they’re facing now is particularly grim.
After a 2-1 walk-off loss to the Baltimore Orioles on Sept. 5, the misfiring parts of this roster – a sputtering offense and a closer struggling to the point of despondency – were laid bare once again.
Their fourth consecutive loss by three or fewer runs has created frayed dispositions in the clubhouse.
‘They suck. They suck,’ says closer Tanner Scott of the close losses after he gave up the game-winning homer to Orioles rookie Samuel Basallo with two outs in the bottom of the ninth at Camden Yards. ‘For everyone that threw tonight that was great, for that to happen, just sucks. It sucks.
‘It feels terrible. I have to figure it out. Baseball hates me right now.’
Scott, signed to a $72 million contract to be the Dodgers’ highest-leverage reliever, instead has been a punching bag in the 78-63 Dodgers’ latest cold streak. He’s given up 10 earned runs in his last nine innings pitched, including five home runs, dating to July 6.
But scolding the pitchers during this skid is like blaming the firefighters, not the arsonists; emergency starter Shohei Ohtani did not give up a run and five relievers gave up just one run to the Orioles until Scott yielded the game-winning blast.
No, it’s the Dodger lineup that’s been flaccid in this streak, even as it is decimated.
Catcher Will Smith, probably their best player this year, was injured earlier on the trip, leaving a big hole in the lineup. Third baseman Max Muncy should return next week from an oblique strain, and that’s no small addition: The Dodgers are 54-35 when he’s in the lineup, 24-28 when he’s sidelined.
Yet this is a team of Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts and Ohtani and 2024 hero Teoscar Hernández, right?
Freeman tallied the lone Dodgers run with his 19th home run and as such, figured he’d be questioned postgame. He thought hard, pondered potential answers and still found himself mystified.
‘I’m not going to sit here and give some cliches. We’re just not playing very good,’ says Freeman. ‘Our pitching was great tonight. Offensively, we were not good.
‘There’s no sugarcoating this. We need to figure this out and figure this out quick.’
If momentum is the next day’s starting pitcher, the Dodgers are in good stead with Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Unfortunately, Orioles lefty Trevor Rogers has been on a roll as well, and ready to dig into a Dodgers offense missing apparently indispensable cogs.
‘I’ve said it the last two weeks: Nobody’s going to feel sorry for you. You’ve got to be a pro and make it happen,’ says manager Dave Roberts. ‘This is our team. We’ve got guys coming back but for the next few days, this is what we got.’
Smith likely won’t play the rest of the weekend, and his replacement, top prospect Dalton Rushing, will get a CT scan Sept. 6 to rule out any further damage after fouling a ball off his right leg; X-rays were negative, but he was on crutches after the game.
Not exactly the sight the flailing Dodgers needed to see. Ohtani, too, can see that his mates are pressing.
‘We, individually, are trying to find ways on our own to make sure we’re hitting better than we are and I think a side effect of that is we’re a little too eager and putting a little too much pressure on ourselves,’ says Ohtani through team translator Will Ireton. ‘In a sense, that’s really hurting us more than helping us.
‘I do feel it, in a sense my job is to make hard contact and get on base, finding ways for myself and Mookie to make sure there’s runners on base for Will Smith and Freddie Freeman.’