The Los Angeles Dodgers dropped their first game of the regular season with a 4-2 loss to the Cleveland Guardians on Monday night.
Continuing a trend to start the year, the Dodgers fell behind early and weren’t able to get anything going offensively until later in the contest.
L.A. had scoring opportunities in the third and seventh innings, but couldn’t cash in. It wasn’t until the ninth when the Dodgers finally got on the board, which came after some help from the Guardians’ defense.
Kyle Tucker reached on a misplayed ground ball and later advanced to third on a wild pitch. Mookie Betts then lined a double to plate the run before scoring on a groundout from Freddie Freeman.
The Dodgers’ offense has now scored only 14 runs in their last four games after pushing across eight on Opening Day. That wasn’t an expected outcome considering the team’s success in Spring Training, but manager Dave Roberts is confident they will find their groove again.
“I mean, I am surprised that they got off to a slow start, but you just never really know,” Roberts said of the Dodgers’ offensive struggles.
“Spring Training is just not predictive, it’s just not. So I think for me, the takeaway is we’re 3-1, and the guys that we expect to swing the bats aren’t swinging the bats right now, so that’s a good thing. So they’ll hit.”
While the Dodgers have gotten excellent production from the bottom of their lineup, several key contributors are still trying to get back on track. Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernández, Betts, Freeman and Tucker are among the players who have struggled.
With it being so early in the season, Roberts does not feel the need to panic and is confident the group will eventually turn things around.
Freddie Freeman shares ‘key’ to Dodgers’ offensive success
The Dodgers have trailed by multiple runs in each of their first four games this season, but Freeman believes the team can overcome any deficit due to their ability to control the strike zone and keep a steady approach.
“Obviously, we would love to get more hits than we had the last couple days, but I think with our lineup, no one’s going to worry about that,” Freeman said after the Dodgers swept the Arizona Diamondbacks. “It’s going to happen. Baseball’s hard. We’re going to go through our stretches where we don’t get the hits.
“But that’s the key. We got really good people on the rubber there too that keep us in the game just long enough where we can come out and score some runs late in the game. We got a deep and talented lineup. You can see coming off the bench today, you have Max Muncy, you got Freeland. And then obviously, the guys that started. Santiago was an All-Star a couple years ago. You have Miguel, who is doing it all right now.
“So we just got a really good team right now, and a good approach. Guys know their strike zones, what they’re trying to do at each and every at-bat, and it’s working so far.”
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