Dodgers’ offensive slump continues as losing streak reaches four (2024)

CINCINNATI – If only the Dodgers could bury their offense in cheese to make it more palatable like the locals do with the Skyline chili of which they are so inexplicably proud.

They turned in another unappetizing performance Saturday night, managing just five hits and wasting their best scoring opportunities in a 3-1 loss to the Cincinnati Reds.

The loss was the Dodgers’ season-high fourth in a row.

But the offensive malaise goes back farther than that. Over their past 16 games, the Dodgers have averaged just 3.6 runs per game. Saturday was the fifth time in that stretch they managed to touch home plate no more than once and they are batting .216 as a team during this stretch.

“Just gotta keep going,” Dodgers leadoff man Mookie Betts said. “There’s no words that anybody can say that’s going to make us all of a sudden start hitting. If that was the case, we would have done it a long time ago. So it’s just part of the game. Again, you just gotta figure out a way. There’s nothing nobody can really say or do. Well, I guess there is something — just get it done.”

Even their lone run of the game Saturday was just about as inoffensive as it could get.

They did load the bases with no outs in the second inning on a pair of singles by Will Smith and Teoscar Hernandez and a walk of Gavin Lux. But Smith trotted home as Jason Heyward bounced into a double play and the Dodgers’ scoring threat was neutered.

They did even less with Freddie Freeman’s leadoff double in the fourth inning and Shohei Ohtani’s one-out triple in the sixth. Both were stranded, part of an 0-for-7 performance with runners in scoring position.

That has been a recurring theme during this stretch. The Dodgers are batting .205 (26 for 127) over their past 16 games.

“Yeah, that’s exactly what it is,” Betts said of the need for timely hitting. “But I mean — it’s baseball. You’re gonna go through your ups and you’re gonna go through your downs. You just can’t get too low or too high. Just gotta ride the wave. Unfortunately, we’re not getting it done right now. Everyone wants to get it done. It’s not like we’re not trying. But we’re not getting it done. So we gotta figure out a way.”

Ohtani’s sixth-inning triple was the Dodgers’ last hit in the game. In another recurring theme, the bottom five hitters in the lineup — Teoscar Hernandez, Gavin Lux, Kike’ Hernandez, Heyward and Chris Taylor — went a combined 1 for 14 with Teoscar Hernandez’s infield single the only hit.

“As far as the two weeks of very inconsistent offense, it’s a collective effort,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “It’s not just the top that’s got to go up there and do their thing. It’s the middle. It’s the bottom of the order. It’s everyone. Not trying to play for one big hit, but we haven’t got that hit. Each game you look at, there’s some opportunities for us to put up a crooked number and just haven’t been able to do that.”

Meanwhile in his fourth start since returning from elbow surgery, Dodgers starter Walker Buehler is still struggling to miss bats.

He didn’t the first time he faced the Reds. Last week at Dodger Stadium, he held them scoreless for six innings, allowing just three hits and striking out seven. The start seemed to give hope that Buehler was successfully reinventing himself to accommodate his new post-surgery reality.

The second time around against the Reds, though, looked more like his first two starts. He gave up solo home runs to Spencer Steer on a hanging slider in the first inning and to Will Benson on a grooved fastball in the third.

Buehler did get three strikeouts on called third strikes but his first 60 pitches generated just three swings-and-misses. He threw a season-high 91 pitches over 5 2/3 innings. The Reds swung and missed just six times.

“I kept telling them I was making a little bit of chicken salad out of chicken (expletive) for a second there,” Buehler said.

The Reds got to him for another run in the sixth inning on a leadoff double by Jacob Hurtibise and an RBI single by Elly De La Cruz before Buehler’s day was done. Discounting his scoreless outing against the Reds, Buehler has given up 17 hits (including five home runs) in 13 innings.

“I made some pitches that I liked. I made a few pitches that I really didn’t like,” Buehler said. “Both the homer at 1-0 and 2-0, it’s kind of what we dealt with in San Diego – it’s count leverage for me. I don’t necessarily think I’m complacent. But in the past I think 1-0, 2-0 I could get away with throwing heaters, just really try and rip on them or whatever and blow it by people. That’s something we’ll look at and think through if we need to throw wrinkles in those counts.

“Given that, I think you’ve got to figure out this chess match. My last start, I feel like the chess pieces kind of worked the way they should. Tonight, a couple of them I just didn’t get in good spots and they put two good swings on balls. Then in the sixth, those two guys obviously did what they’re supposed to do.”