One trademark for the Los Angeles Dodgers en route to winning the 2020 World Series was their situational hitting. It was much improved from the year prior, and took another leap forward during the postseason.
That held particularly true in the Fall Classic, as two-out rallies became commonplace — if not expected. Whether because of injuries, regression, or combination of both, the 2021 team didn’t quite shine to the same level.
The Dodgers did begin to consistently find their stride late in the season as they closed on a seven-game winning streak. However, that’s waned a bit in the postseason and on Monday night they were shut out for a second time in three National League Division Series Games.
“I don’t think so,” manager Dave Roberts answered when asked if the offensive struggles were similar to what was seen during stretches of the regular season.
“If you look at [Monday], obviously the result is we got shut out, but I do think there were some good at-bats. The Mookie at-bat, a line out, the two balls that I thought were home runs, I felt we took some good at-bats and we just didn’t get rewarded.
“I thought collectively we did a nice job and better than the goose eggs we threw out.”
In the NLDS opener, the Dodgers uncharacteristically lacked discipline against Logan Webb, who turned in arguably the best start of his career.
“Last year we lived by the homer in the regular season, but I thought in the postseason we brought out a different club, and we got deep into counts, took walks, used the whole field, kept the line moving, and you’re going to run into some homers that way,” Roberts said after the Game 1 loss.
“The first thing is we just didn’t make an adjustment all night long. I thought we had the same club all night long, and that was a driver. So you got to kind of read and react sometimes.”
Despite familiarity and past success against Alex Wood, Albert Pujols’ two singles were the Dodgers’ only hits off their former teammate over his 4.2 innings of work.
L.A. finished with five hits on the night, though as Roberts noted, severe wind was a factor. So too was Brandon Crawford making a pair of impressive plays.
Roberts message to Dodgers
The Dodgers are one week removed from playing a single-elimination Wild Card Game and can also look back to last year’s NL Championship Series for staying alive in October.
“Just win [Tuesday],” Roberts said of his message to the team. “Everything is on the table and our focus has to turn to [Tuesday] and whatever it takes to win. And then we’ll kind of pick up the pieces after that.”
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