After a poor stretch of baseball where the Los Angeles Dodgers hit rock bottom and lost five consecutive games, they have seemingly turned things around.
The Dodgers are on a four-game winning streak and just completed a sweep of the Colorado Rockies. After an off day on Thursday, the Dodgers now begin an important series against the San Francisco Giants.
The Giants have won seven of their last 10 games and have been on a hot streak that’s propelled them back into the National League Wild Card race. They also always play the Dodgers well, even when they’re at their worst.
This series has major implications for both teams, so Dodgers manager Dave Roberts thinks it will be a tough matchup each night.
“For me, I still stand by it’s up to us and how we play, regardless of opponent,” Roberts began. “Obviously we’ve talked about us against teams under .500 and how we’ve played. So it’s kind of regardless of the opponent.
“The Giants are playing as good of baseball as anyone right now, and they’re fighting for a Wild Card, so they’re going to give us everything they have. You’ve got a division rival, team that’s hungry and playing well, so it’s going to be a battle up there for three nights.”
The Dodgers are 4-2 against the Giants this season, outscoring them 32-26. The two teams are set to face each other seven times in the next 10 days.
It could be the defining week ahead for the Dodgers and their postseason seeding. Sandwiched between their two series against the Giants, they also host the Philadelphia Phillies, the club ahead of them for the second seed in the NL.
The Dodgers also sit just 2.5 games in front of the Padres for first place the NL West. The Dodgers facing a team in the postseason race for 10 consecutive days could push them into a Wild Card spot, help them clinch the division, or in the best-case scenario, send them into the second seed in the NL.
The Giants trail the Dodgers by eight games in the division, so they also have the potential to make the NL West race more interesting, aside from chasing the Wild Card spot. And even though the Giants are competing for their own playoff hopes, they will surely want to play spoiler for their division rival.
The Dodgers need to play their best baseball over the next two weeks, and with how they just played against the Rockies, it provides some optimism for the club.
Dodgers avoiding slump after off day?
One interesting aspect of the Dodgers play will be how they come out on Friday following their day off. The Dodgers have lost their last two games coming after an off day, and they looked lethargic each time.
Roberts credited some of those issues to a lack of focus, so they need to be locked in and ready to go. The Dodgers are sending Yoshinobu Yamamoto to the mound for the series opener, and hope he’ll set the tone early.
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