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The Dodgers finally solved their recent offensive woes on Monday.
And the answer, it turned out, wasn’t much of a mystery.
Sure, manager Dave Roberts noted in his pregame media address, the Dodgers needed to be more selective at the plate, coming off a 3-6 skid over the last two weeks in which they’d hit .218 as a team and averaged barely three runs per game.
Wes Parker has accomplished much outside of baseball since retiring from the Dodgers more than 50 years ago, but he still has fond memories of his time with the team.
“When you’re swinging and trying to cover every pitch, all parts of the zone, that’s tough to do in the big leagues,” Roberts said. “I think having an idea of where you want to hunt is a good start for us.”
During afternoon batting practice, the Dodgers’ hitting coaches changed up the routine, too, having batters take swings off a high-velocity pitching machine — rather than soft tosses from members of the staff — in hopes of improving the offense’s mediocre production against fastballs.
“We always prioritize hitting velocity, and that’s something we haven’t done great,” hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc said. “So, thought it was a good day to do it.”
But the biggest difference on Monday, in the Dodgers’ 5-3 win over the Colorado Rockies, was to the lineup itself.
For just the fifth time in 18 games, Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman were all in the batting order again.
And, for arguably the first time this season, the Dodgers’ Big 3 looked like their terrifying, thunderous selves — setting the tone, leading the way and quieting questions about the recently sluggish offense by keying a season-high 10-hit performance from the team.
“Those guys, they’re perennial All-Stars for a reason,” Roberts said. “And having them do what they do is certainly helpful.”
On Monday, the Dodgers (12-6) were reminded of that from the very start.
Betts hit a two-run home run in the top of the first, after Ohtani led the game off with a single. Ohtani went yard himself in the third inning, collecting his fifth long ball of the season on a no-doubt blast to center. Freeman tacked on two hits in a return to form following time away on the injured list.
They started off 8-0 and seemed invincible, but the Dodgers are just 3-6 since then and look very vulnerable.
Combined, they were seven for 14 with three RBIs and all five runs scored — a stat line that would have been bigger if two long drives from Ohtani didn’t die at the warning track on a crisp Chavez Ravine night.
“We just gotta continue to have good at-bats,” Betts said.
Those weren’t the only contributions that aided the Dodgers in their series-opening win.
Dustin May continued his strong return to health with a six-inning, one-run, seven-strikeout gem against the Rockies (3-13) and a lineup that hadn’t scored in a whopping 32 innings until an RBI double from Kyle Farmer in the fifth.
“It wasn’t fun giving up the first run in five games for them,” May joked, “but it was a solid start, so can’t complain.”
Will Smith, who was batting fourth with Teoscar Hernández out because of a stomach bug, also had two hits and two RBIs, improving to eight for 11 when batting with runners in scoring position.
Still, it was the three MVPs atop the Dodgers’ lineup that injected life back into their scuffling offense, grinding out the kind of productive and taxing at-bats that had been missing in recent weeks.
Entering Monday, Ohtani was batting just .219 over his last eight games, cooling off from his blistering start. Same story with Betts, who hit .250 with just one extra base hit over his last 10 contests.
Then there was Freeman, the iron-man first baseman who reluctantly went on the injured list after re-aggravating his surgically repaired ankle earlier this month while slipping in the shower. After a one-for-seven showing in his return this past weekend against the Chicago Cubs, he opened with a single in the first and double in the third, before later reaching on an error in the sixth that led to a key insurance run.
Betts said the trio wasn’t feeling added pressure to snap the club out of its offensive funk. He noted that “everybody feels that responsibility, just because we all can do it.”
“We all know we’ve been struggling,” Betts said. “Everybody is trying to be the guy to get us out. But I think we have to kind of go the opposite way and stop trying so hard and just kind of let it happen ... when you just let things happen, just play the game like you always do, good things tend to happen.”
Nonetheless, the game is a lot easier for the Dodgers when their superstar trio is producing.
And on Monday, it trickled down to one of the club’s better all-around offensive showings. The Dodgers struck out just three times. They drew five walks. And they constantly “created stress,” as Roberts proudly pointed out, even though they squandered the opportunity to put more crooked numbers on the board by going just two for 10 with runners in scoring position.
“We took our walks, [created] a lot of traffic, really got to the starter,” Roberts said. “[We got] back to kind of who we are.”
In performance; and, even more so, personnel.
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