Getting consistent offense has been an issue for the Los Angeles Dodgers throughout much of this season, and it’s a problem that has severely cost them in the National League West division race.

When looking at their overall season statistics, the numbers paint a positive picture. The Dodgers lead MLB with 668 runs, their on-base plus slugging percentage of .767 and 113 wRC+ both rank second among all teams, and they’re sixth with a .253 batting average.

But since the start of July, the Dodgers rank just 24th in runs scored with 191, 21st in team OPS at .707, 26th with a .233 batting average, and a 98 wRC+ that ranks 20th in MLB.

Every time the offense shows signs of breaking out, they regress right back. The Dodgers haven’t scored six or more runs in consecutive games since June 24-25.

Ongoing issues have been highlighted in San Diego, as they scored just one run in back-to-back games, with only one hit in each of them through the first seven innings.

Between the starts from Yu Darvish on Friday and Nestor Cortes on Saturday, it was the first time in L.A. Dodgers franchise history (since 1958) that a pair of pitchers have thrown consecutive games of at least six innings while allowing one or fewer hits against them.

Part of the Dodgers’ offensive struggles have been related to injuries, but their stars have also slumped for long stretches of the season.

Dodgers react to offensive struggles

Miguel Rojas

Cortes allowed just one baserunner over six innings against the Dodgers after entering the game with an ERA close to six. That was the first start in his career that Cortes only allowed one baserunner or fewer over at least six innings.

“I just feel like we had an approach against him, and he was able to keep the ball away from righties,” Miguel Rojas said. “We’ve got a lot of righties out there, and he was attacking us a different way than he was pitching the last couple starts.

“I feel like our approach was get him a little closer and try to be aggressive to his fastball. But he was good with throwing the cutter on the outside part of the plate and kind of kept us off balance. I felt like a lot of swings we took weren’t good swings to get on base. It was a little more to do damage early in the count, and he was able to capitalize on that. A couple balls that we hit hard were right at people.

“This night is frustrating for the offense because we know we’re more than capable of putting together better at-bats and more hits to create some traffic to give us a chance to win the game. But it wasn’t a good night for us.”

Rojas believes part of the reason the Dodgers have struggled is connected to taking too big of swings in pursuit of slugging. In counts where they’re behind, he thinks it would be more beneficial to focus on putting the ball in play.

“I’m not going to talk for all of my teammates. We have nine guys out there trying to put good at-bats together, and we all know the talent is there,” Rojas said.

“But sometimes it’s hard to go out there and try to change who you are. We are who we are. We’ve got a lot of guys that can leave the ballpark, but we all know we can play better baseball than we’ve been playing the last couple days. I feel like the offense is inconsistent at times and we can always get better.

“We all know we need to get better if we want to win games in a consistent way. We have to make an adjustment in-game that is going to put us in the best position to get starts out of the game. Not just because the other manager wants to take him out of there. We need to force him out of the game, and we need to start doing a better job of that.”

Will Smith

After Rojas called for better in-game adjustments, Will Smith agreed with that before adding the offense needed to be more aggressive early in the count against Cortes instead of falling behind.

“Yeah, I think so,” Smith said. “We hit some balls hard to right that Tatis caught, but he was getting ahead of us, some soft contact. We needed to jump on him and put some runs up early, and just didn’t do that.”

Dave Roberts

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has often discussed a mindset of focusing on each night and doing something to help the team win instead of focusing on stats. It’s a mindset that has helped Mookie Betts, and one he tried to use with Michael Conforto.

Along with that, Roberts also recognizes the need for better in-game adjustments instead of being so rigid to the game plan they entered with.

“I agree with what they’re saying,” Roberts began. “I think this time of the season, it’s not about the mechanics, your swing. It’s about, ‘How can I help the team win and find a way to move the line forward?’ Get hits, spoil pitches, compete.

“There’s a different level of trying. I think everyone is trying, but I think just the next level of going with whatever swing you have that particular night and fighting and willing yourself to get some hits, get some base, create innings and score runs. It’s not a lack of talent. It’s certainly not a lack of try, but we’ve got to do more. That’s sort of what I see, so I agree with what those guys said.

“There’s a point in a season where you’re kind of trying to find your swing, and we’re at the end of August, and it’s just about getting the job done and finding a way to find some production. It might look ugly, but we’ve got a kid who comes up and he’s responsible for two of our runs in this series. And that’s just fight and hunger from a young kid who is trying to stick.

“You look at the talent in our room, obviously we’ve lost the first two here, Pivetta has a had a nice year, but regardless of what the game plan is, and they have game plans as well, so there is a situation, like the guys said, you do got to read and react. And you’ve got to kind of understand what’s happening in a ballgame and make your adjustments.”

Roberts also agreed with Rojas’ assessment that the Dodgers are taking too many big swings and called on his club to play better situational baseball.

“Absolutely,” Roberts said. “You saw [Friday] night with Manny, guy in scoring position, he shortens up and lines a ball to center field. Laureano tonight, shortens up, and he’s a dead pull-guy but blocked a ball the other way to drive in a couple runs. Just finding ways to create offense.

“Those guys are good, pitchers are good, so you have to take what the pitcher gives you and try to create something. You can’t always go for that big swing. You’ve got to kind of shorten up. We have it in there and we do it at times, but collectively, I just don’t see us doing that. There’s certain guys that are doing it, but the time of trying to find your swing, or mechanics, all that stuff has got to take place in the cage.”

Even with that, Roberts still has confidence his club will figure it out. “We’re going to get there,” He said.

“Definitely not a disappointment. It’s just more of a surprise I guess, in the sense that we’ve won. A lot of guys in this room have won, the pitching has been good, the defense has been good, so now it’s just getting the guys that have played important ballgames to kind of wrap their head around helping the ballclub.

“Your stats are your stats. You’ve got to kind of just isolate that particular game and whatever you have that night, you’ve got to go with it. And I think good things will happen.”

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