CINCINNATI – With severe storms approaching, fans at Great American Ball Park were advised in the fourth inning Sunday to take cover in the concourse area.
After a one-hour, nine-minute rain delay, they returned to their seats. The Dodgers’ offense has gone missing far longer.
The Dodgers managed just five hits in a 4-1 loss Sunday as the Cincinnati Reds completed a three-game sweep of the weekend series.
The loss was the Dodgers’ fifth in a row, their longest losing streak since a six-game skid in early April 2019.
“It’s May. It’s baseball. We play 162 games,” Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman said. “Two weeks ago, we were winning every game (17 of 21 at one point). We go through these stretches throughout the course of the year and maybe it’ll start (to turn around) tomorrow.”
It’s gone steadily downhill during this losing streak. The Dodgers have been outscored 29-11 during the five losses with six of their runs coming during Friday’s loss. They haven’t held a lead since mid-game Friday – and that was swamped by a six-run fifth inning from the Reds.
The five-game losing streak is just the nadir of a three-week slump. With Sunday’s shortened loss, the Dodgers are 8-9 in their last 17 games with the offense mainly responsible for the struggles.
Over that stretch, the Dodgers have averaged 3.47 runs per game. Sunday was the seventh time during the 17-game slide that they have been held to two runs or fewer.
As a team, they are batting .215 over the past 17 games. With runners in scoring position, they have gone 27 for 135 (.200) with runners in scoring position including a miserable 6 for 47 (.128) during this losing streak.
“I’d expect us to be better than what we are right now,” Dodgers second baseman Gavin Lux said. “But like I said, it’s baseball. Still a really good lineup and we know it’s gonna flip. But yeah I think we all expect more out of ourselves and I think everyone does. We’ll get it going. Just a matter of time.”
One thing, in particular, has stood out within the at-bats. The Dodgers are not hitting fastballs with any frequency.
“They let us know,” Freeman said of the daily hitters’ meetings.
“You look at all the advance stats, it’s no secret,” Lux said. “It’s still a really good group, really good lineup and it’s just one of those runs where we’re just not really clicking, not getting hits in scoring position. All of us. So it’s just a long season,
“We know it’s gonna flip. We just gotta make it happen.”
Nick Martinez has been a repeat offender against the Dodgers’ slumping lineup.
The Reds right-hander has pitched in the ‘bulk’ role during two bullpen games against the Dodgers recently. He has retired 27 of 30 batters faced over 9 ⅓ scoreless innings in those two games.
Martinez has a 5.45 ERA against every other team this season.
“It’s a good changeup. He sells it well,” Lux said of Martinez’s pitch mix. “It’s slower than you think and it’s a big difference than his cutter and his fastball. So he moves the ball around. He’s got five good pitches. He knows how to pitch and I think it’s more that than anything. It’s a good changeup, a big speed difference, so it’s tough to cover both.”
The Dodgers had just one baserunner in five innings against Martinez at Dodger Stadium last week (an infield single). Before the rains came Sunday, they had two. Andy Pages reached on an error in the second inning and was then erased in a double play. Teoscar Hernandez had a two-out double in the fourth inning. Pages followed with a strikeout.
The sixth through ninth spots in the Dodgers’ lineup went 1 for 14 in Saturday’s loss. Some of the names changed but the bottom five in the lineup went hitless in 15 at-bats in Sunday’s loss.
But only Mookie Betts (1 for 4 Sunday and 6 for 18 during the losing streak) has been immune to the offensive malaise.
Shohei Ohtani is 8 for 38 (.211) since he was hit in the left hamstring by a pickoff throw in the first game against the Reds last week and 5 for 21 during the losing streak — including a 113.5 mph rocket off the glove of Reds first baseman Spencer Steer to set up the Dodgers’ lone run in the ninth inning Sunday.
Freeman is 3 for 17 during the losing streak but did drive in the Dodgers’ only run with a ninth-inning double following Ohtani’s single. More worrisome, though, he is 11 for his past 52 (.212).
“It just seems like we’re running cold. When you’re not hitting, it certainly seems lifeless,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I know it’s not from care and preparation. But the bottom line is, it’s about results. And we’re not getting them right now. I think everyone in that clubhouse understands that.”
“There’s no team that’s gonna feel sorry for you. This is a grown man’s game. You gotta pull up your boot straps and find a way to figure it out. There’s nothing I can detect. I think that, inside of the numbers, when you get a good pitch to hit you gotta hit them. And you gotta control the strike zone. And that’s kind of the crux of it. But they outplayed us this series and won three.”
Yoshinobu Yamamoto did not pitch during the four-game Dodgers-Red series in Los Angeles last weekend.
Getting their first look at the Japanese rookie, the Reds put runners on in each of the first two innings then broke through for four runs on an assortment of four singles, a walk and a stolen base in the third.
Yamamoto threw 100 pitches (matching his season-high) to get through five innings and did not return after the rain delay.
After scoreless innings from Anthony Banda, Roberts sent Yohan Ramirez out for the eighth. The recently-acquired right-hander was part of the problem Friday night. He threw 13 pitches, only one strike, while facing three batters — hitting two and walking the other.
This time, he retired the first two batters in the eighth before giving up a single and hitting two more batters, back-to-back. Roberts went out to the mound, threw his arms around Ramirez and spoke into his ear for some time.
“On the heels of the other night, and having trouble commanding the baseball and the results of the other night, he’s emotional and cares, and he’s trying to impress with a new ballclub and I saw some of the same things happening today,” Roberts said. “So I wanted to kind of cut it off before it really spun out. And I just tried to reassure him and give him some confidence, love on him a little bit, and try to take a little bit of pressure off.
“You just see the player, and you kind of feel what he’s got going on in his brain, in his heart, all that stuff. Sometimes I’m sure — I’ve never thrown a major league inning — but you feel like you’re on an island. So I wanted to show that we were all behind him.”
Ramirez got the third out on his next pitch.