No one honestly expected Dodgers right-hander Josh Beckett to throw another no-hitter in Wednesday night’s series and home stand finale against the Chicago White Sox at Dodger Stadium, but with the complete lack of Dodgers offense lately, he pretty much had to if he had any hopes of collecting his fourth win of the season.

It didn’t happen.

In fact, the Dodgers were nearly no-hit themselves were it not for a leadoff drag bunt single by Dee Gordon in the first inning of the eventual 2-1 Dodgers loss. Gordon would also pick up the Dodgers only other hit of the night – a weak double off the third base bag in the bottom of the eighth inning.

Beckett allowed only two runs (both on solo home runs) on nine hits in his 6.0 innings of work. He struck out six while walking two and kept his ERA at an outstanding 2.57 – second only to likely Cy Young candidate Zack Greinke’s 2.50 among all Dodger starters. In other words, Beckett once again did his job exceptionally well on Wednesday night but his teammates did not do theirs.

There is no justification or excuse for the inability of the Dodgers highly paid offense to give Josh Beckett and the other Dodger starters run support.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

Although Beckett took full responsibility the loss, the truth of the matter is that his teammates (other than Gordon) completely let him down. So bad were they that they didn’t even leave their normal boatload of runners on base (only six) and were a paltry 0 for 2 with runners in scoring position. Simply put, the Dodgers offense once again failed to show up.

And what did the 0 for 4 Matt Kemp and the 0 for 4 Adrian Gonzalez have to say about this and the other Dodgers offense woes?

Nothing.

They refused to speak with reporters after Wednesday night’s embarrassing loss in front an announced crowd of 45,540 at Dodger Stadium but was in reality much closer to 35,000.

The good news (if you can call it that) is that the Dodgers begin a seven-game road trip on Friday evening in Colorado. The Dodgers are 18-11 (.620) on the road this season. The bad news is that they then return home, where they are an unacceptable 13-19 (.408).