The Dodgers may be coming out of their roughest patch of the season, but the conversation around this offense has shifted to something a little more specific - and a lot more uncomfortable.
They’re getting beat by fastballs.
That’s the issue Dave Roberts zeroed in on, and he didn’t sugarcoat it. The Dodgers manager said the club has been too easy to challenge with heaters, and he wants that to register with his hitters.
“It never feels good to be bullied,” Roberts said of the team’s difficulty against heaters. “And to think that, or to know, that teams go after us with the fastball more than any team in baseball, that’s bothersome. That would bother me.
“So, how do you do it? You got to look in your zone and get the bat head to it.
We’ve scored runs, a lot of runs, fourth in baseball. But that doesn’t tell the whole story.
And so the story is being the best version of ourselves, and that’s hitting the fastball, and making adjustments in at-bats, situationally, all of them.
“So yeah, it’s something that I hope our guys take that personal. We shouldn’t get bullied.”
The timing of the slump matters, too. The Dodgers were in the middle of a seven-game losing streak and had dropped three straight series before finally starting to turn things around. Even with that, the offense has been uneven for weeks, and one of the biggest culprits has been the team’s league-leading tendency to ground into double plays.
The fastball problem has been just as glaring. Since July 1, Fabian Ardaya of The Athletic reported that the Dodgers have seen the highest percentage of fastballs of any team in baseball. Over that stretch, they’ve also been in the bottom five in on-base percentage and slugging percentage against fastballs.
The broader numbers tell the same story. Since the start of July, the Dodgers rank 20th in FanGraphs’ WAR at 2.9, 21st in wRC+ at 92, 22nd in on-base plus slugging percentage at .703 and 22nd in wOBA at .306.
A few regulars have been caught in the downturn as well. Max Muncy has a 94 wRC+ in that span, Tommy Edman sits at 83, Teoscar Hernández is at 69 and Mookie Betts is at 68. Muncy has come through with clutch hits in back-to-back games, and Betts supplied slug in the Dodgers’ win on Tuesday night, but the bigger trend has still leaned the wrong way.
Even with the recent dip, the Dodgers remain one of baseball’s most productive offenses overall. For the season, they’re first or second in several major categories, including batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, wRC+ and FanGraphs’ WAR.
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Freddie Freeman is also part of the shuffle, with Roberts moving him into the second spot against right-handers. For the Dodgers, that gives the order a different look without changing the basic idea behind it, but it also underscores how carefully they are trying to manage the bottom line of production as they sort through a few uneven stretches at the plate. Hernandezs role in particular will be one to watch, since the team is clearly trying to get more out of matchups without fully taking him out of the picture. [Read more 🡒]