The Los Angeles Dodgers’ recent struggles continued as they dropped a third consecutive series by losing to the Arizona Diamondbacks and finishing 1-5 on their road trip.
The Dodgers fell into an early 4-0 hole in the series finale at Chase Field but never were completely out of the game. They slowly chipped away at the deficit and managed to bring the tying run to the plate in the top of the eighth inning.
However, any momentum they had was taken away when Freddie Freeman grounded into a double play. It was the third straight game that L.A. grounded into a double play, which has been a problem all season.
Given the age of the Dodgers’ roster, some believe that double plays are going to be a natural part of their game. However, manager Dave Roberts downplayed that notion and believes his players need to do a better job of reading the situation to avoid them.
“It’s not age. It’s not about putting guys in motion,” Roberts said on SportsNet LA. “Because you start doing things just to do things, and when a guy swings and misses, and gets thrown out by 10 feet, that’s a bad process. You have to layer in who the hitter is, the contact ability, who the pitcher is, the swing-and-miss rate, who the runner is.
“There’s a lot of people that can look at the rate we hit into double plays, and have thoughts. But they’re not thought through. I think for me, don’t watch the Diamondbacks a lot, but when we do play them, they don’t hit into a lot of double plays because their intent with guys on first base is a certain intent to stay inside the baseball and not pull the ball on the ground.
“So my thought is our guys need to do a better job at understanding what the pitcher is trying to do. That’s the solution.”
How can Dodgers fix double plays?
The Dodgers have grounded into 99 double plays this season, eight more than the next-closest team, the Pittsburgh Pirates.
The Dodgers can potentially curb this issue by putting runners in motion more often, but Roberts believes simply understanding the pitcher’s game plan would be the easier fix. So too would some natural regression to the mean for the Dodgers as a whole in terms of hitting for more power.
Have you subscribed to the Dodger Blue YouTube channel? Be sure to ring the notification bell to watch player interviews, participate in shows and giveaways, and stay up to date on all Dodgers news and rumors!
