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Admit it, there is worry.
Fess up, negative thoughts are swirling.
Could it be possible that the greatest team in baseball history isn’t even the best team in their division?
Is there a chance that a team so recently dubbed, “invincible” and “unbeatable” is actually more like “maddening” and “mediocre?”
Does baseball’s reigning emperor have no clothes?
That was some of the talk floating through the late afternoon haze Sunday as the Dodgers followed the worst loss in Dodger Stadium history with one of the most frustrating of the season.
One moment the Chicago Cubs were beating the Dodgers 16-0, then less than 24 hours later they were winning with a quarter of those runs. One moment the Cubs were embarrassing the Dodgers, the next moment they were enraging them, a 4-2 loss that dropped the Dodgers to 3-6 since their 8-0 start.
They have lost three consecutive series for the first time in nearly a year, and it only happened once last season, and, yes, late Sunday that was Max Muncy’s bat and helmet flying through the air.
“It’s just a bumpy two weeks,” said Mookie Betts, adding, “This isn’t the first time we sucked for two weeks.”
Dodgers lose their third consecutive series as offense continues to slump during loss to the Chicago Cubs.
The adjective in the first sentence was appropriate. The verb in the second sentence was perfect.
The Dodgers lost Sunday’s game despite six strong innings from Tyler Glasnow, who gave up a couple of runs on two homers and rebounded from a muddy beating in Philadelphia to pitch as wonderfully as the weather.
But starting pitching isn’t the problem. It’s everything else.
The fielding generally stinks, witness the misplayed fly ball in the left-field corner by Michael Conforto that led to the eighth-inning clinching run.
“Outs that we have to have, we gotta convert those,” said manager Dave Roberts for the umpteenth time.
The hitting, meanwhile, really stinks, this historic offense began the game ranking eighth in baseball in strikeouts and OPS while drawing only the 17th-most walks.
“We’re trying to get the job done,” said Betts. “We’re just not.”
In other words, the magic of all those wondrous plate appearances in October have at least temporarily disappeared. This Dodger team doesn’t work the count, they don’t wear down the pitcher, they don’t own the moment.
The top of the lineup has been decent, but the bottom of the order has been non-existent.
Kiké Hernández is five for 44. Miguel Rojas is five for 31. Muncy is nine for 51 and still without a homer.
The root of the frustrations for Andy Pages has been at the plate — where, even after collecting two home runs in his last three games, he is batting just .171 with a .648 OPS.
How bad is the group of background players who once stole the show and made this team’s stars shine? So far this season Shohei Ohtani has had seven plate appearances with runners in scoring position. All season.
“It’s a 162-game season and it’s going to be like that,” said Hernández. “You’re never going to have … every guy in the lineup be hot at the same time. I just feel like — we have more guys scuffling than guys that are feeling really good at the plate, so it’s just one of those stretches right now.”
Standing in front of his locker after Sunday’s game, admirably facing the tough questions, Hernández made a promise.
At the beginning of the season it felt like a realistic promise. Suddenly it feels like a shaky one
“We’re going to snap out of it and we’re just going to start steamrolling people,” he said.
Maybe so, but they have to first rediscover what led them to steamrolling people in the first place. These glamorous defending world champions have to remember the time — not so long ago — when they were the gritty team with the chip on their shoulders.
“We just gotta … get back to who we are as an offense,” said Roberts. “Running counts, getting on base, taking walks when given to us, and not chasing, and trying to create stress. And when we do that, we give ourselves more opportunities. And when we don’t do that, our margin is much smaller. Pitchers have to be more perfect, and that’s a tough way to live.”
You know what’s a really tough way to live? Without Freddie Freeman. His ankle injury may be the key to this entire slide. Freeman grounded out as a pinch-hitter in the ninth inning Sunday but he hasn’t been on the field much and the Dodger offense has crumbled without his cornerstone.
Freeman played virtually the entire season in six of the last seven years, but he’s only appeared in seven of 17 games this season, so you know something is wrong. His surgically repaired ankle is still obviously bothering him, and the pain is clearly killing the Dodgers.
“Freddie is wired very routine,” said Roberts. “Being hurt, the start-stop, the (injured list) — certainly not ideal for him, or for anyone. But he’ll get there. It’s not perfect, his ankle. It’s sort of a new normal, in my opinion. I just feel he’s going to have to calibrate the new normal for his ankle.”
Freeman is apparently going to have to battle his condition the entire season. And so, apparently, will the Dodgers. It is a battle they all must win. Their title defense depends on it.
Like Hernández, Roberts made a promise.
“We’re going to be just fine,” he said. “I still expect to win the division. I still expect to win the World Series. I appreciate the passion, the concern from our fans. But we’re going to be fine.”
OK. Sure. Absolutely. Gulp.
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