Following the Los Angeles Dodgers’ 3-1 loss to the Reds on Saturday, the middle game of a surprising sweep suffered in Cincinnati, Mookie Betts chuckled at the notion that teams overloaded with star talent should be less vulnerable to an extended stretch of losing like the Dodgers are currently enduring.
“That’s what a sheet of paper says,” said Betts. “That’s not how the game goes. The game has to be played. You don’t know how guys are feeling or what’s going on with guys. The sheet of paper will say, yeah, we’re talented … But the game is gonna determine. … We’re not getting it done.”
Betts is right. On paper, the Dodgers shouldn’t be swept by a reeling, last-place Reds team that they just took three of four off of a week earlier in Los Angeles. On paper, a lineup with three MVPs atop it and several accomplished hitters behind them shouldn’t struggle to score runs to the degree the Dodgers have over the past few weeks (3.09 runs per game over the past 11 contests, a stark decline from the 5.4 mark posted over the season’s first 44 games). On paper, a team this loaded shouldn’t lose five games in a row (two to the Diamondbacks, three to the Reds). But here they are.
If five consecutive losses may not sound like a lot, consider the fact that the Dodgers hadn’t lost more than four games in a row since Betts was acquired before the 2020 season. The most recent skid of this length came when the Dodgers dropped six straight in April of 2019, a season in which Los Angeles still went on to win 106 games. In 2018, the Dodgers dropped six straight in mid-May to fall to 16-26 — 16-26!!! — before rallying to 92 wins, another division title, and eventually, an NL pennant. An 11-game losing streak in September didn’t stop the 2017 Dodgers from winning the NL West by a mile and nearly winning it all as well.
Though only a handful of the players on those rosters remain on the 2024 squad, each of those examples are a reminder of how high of a standard this organization has set over the past decade, and in turn, a reason not to bet against the Dodgers’ ability to turn this around in short order. Many great teams across the league have spiraled in the summer months and paid the price, costing themselves a chance to compete in October. But the Dodgers’ unparalleled track record of recent regular season excellence is rooted in part in their ability to withstand and overcome the rare difficult periods. In this era of Dodgers baseball, never has a regular season cold stretch managed to actually derail an eventual trip to the postseason, no matter how bad it has looked at times.
While that context is crucial, it’s not to imply that the 2024 Dodgers are without flaws. Even after a billion-dollar offseason during which the ultra-aggressive front office appeared to raise both the floor and ceiling of the roster, red flags remain regarding the meager bottom half of the lineup and the wavering depth of the bullpen. Losing both closer Evan Phillips and third baseman Max Muncy to the injured list earlier this month has unquestionably contributed to this ugly run, forcing manager Dave Roberts to mix-and-match in the later innings with less-than-stellar options while the pitiful production from the bottom of the order has proven more problematic in Muncy’s absence. It’s not that Gavin Lux (.542 OPS), rookie Andy Pages (.652 OPS), Chris Taylor (.338 OPS), Enrique Hernandez (.555 OPS), or the recently demoted James Outman (.516 OPS), are expected to keep up with sky-high performance of Betts, Shohei Ohtani, and Freddie Freeman. But there is a level of pressure on them to not be so bad that the advantage of having such a powerful top three is undercut.
“I think it comes with the nature of having a top-heavy, star-laden top end,” said Roberts on Friday before the series in Cincinnati began. “But I do think that those guys at the bottom outside of probably Miguel Rojas are just underperforming. And that’s on them as well. So I think that it is relative, but I still believe that they know they should be better.”
No longer can you point at the calendar and shrug “it’s early.”
“I think now’s the time that guys have had enough at-bats there needs to start being some adjustments,” Roberts said on Friday.
With the bottom four spots in the order going a combined 0-for-24 across Saturday and Sunday’s games, patience may be waning.
Standings wise, though, the Dodgers remain in a sufficiently sturdy position atop the AL West with a 33-22 record. As L.A. scuffled in Cincinnati, the rival Giants squandered an opportunity to sweep the Mets by blowing a ninth-inning two-run lead on Sunday in Queens. San Diego dropped a series at home to the Yankees; Arizona did the same against the lowly Marlins. The Dodgers’ 5.5-game lead remains the second largest of any division leader in MLB, narrowly behind Philadelphia’s surprisingly substantial lead over Atlanta through nearly two months of play. While the Dodgers’ lead has been helped by the fact that the teams chasing them have struggled to catch fire in any meaningful way, it’s also indicative of how well the Dodgers were playing out of the gate. Even amidst this cold stretch, we’re still talking about a team with a .600 winning percentage just over one-third of the way through the season. It’d be one thing if the current iteration of the team had yet to demonstrate its tremendous potential, but that’s certainly not the case. We’ve seen this team look as advertised, and as long as the core superstars on both sides of the ball remain healthy, it’d be foolish to expect this lull to sustain much longer.
On June 7, the Dodgers will arrive in the Bronx for a highly-anticipated showdown with the Yankees. Should Los Angeles find its stride again before then, that series is primed to be one of the best of the year, with whispers of “World Series preview” practically an inevitability. If they don’t and their divisional lead continues to shrink, perhaps some tougher questions will need to be asked. But with the Mets, Rockies, and Pirates lined up as LA’s next three opponents, a return to powerhouse form over the next couple weeks feels more likely.
At least, that’s what the sheet of paper would say.
