There are three guarantees in life:
- Death,
- Taxes,
- Chris Taylor striking out.
…or Austin Barnes, or Matt Kemp, or Max Muncy, or even Yasiel Puig; and to a lesser extent Cody Bellinger, Joc Pederson and Yasmani Grandal.
Taylor, last season’s superhero, has struck out 142 times thus far this season – most in the National League by a very wide margin.
Barnes is now officially at the Mendoza Line with his .200 batting average and considered by many to be the team’s designated out.
Kemp, who many had pegged to be the 2018 National League MVP, has seen his batting average drop from a season high .355 on April 11 to a current .280. The extremely popular current former Dodger and 2018 All-Star is also 3-for-his-last-54 (.056).
Muncy, whose pre-All-Star break 22 home runs had him at a torrid Babe Ruth-like one home run for every 10 at-bats, has hit a grand total of four since.
In fact, the only Dodger who is not slumping horribly right now is third baseman Justin Turner, with honorable mention to newcomers Manny Machado and Brian Dozier.
The point here is that while all of the attention is focused on the Dodgers struggling Kenley Jansen-less bullpen which is directly responsible for four of the Dodgers five consecutive losses, the real culprit is a Dodgers offense that has scored only 12 runs in those five losses (45 innings), while collecting a total of 36 hits and slugging only three home runs (Muncy, Puig, and Turner).
There is no denying that the Dodgers bullpen is an absolute train wreck of late, especially in the final at-bats by the opposing team. But the brutally painful truth is that in today’s game, you must – absolutely must – score more than two, three, or even four runs to win a major league baseball game. Over those last five games, the Dodgers offense has scored four, two, three, two, and one run respectively, and that is simply not getting it done.
The bad news is that with Tuesday’s ninth-inning loss (again), this time at the hands of starter-turned-reliever Kenta Maeda, the Dodgers are now in sole possession of third place in the NL West, one game back of the second place Colorado Rockies and two games back of the division-leading Arizona Diamondbacks.
The good news is that following Tuesday night’s 2-1 loss to the Hated Ones, the Dodgers are only two games back of the division-leading Arizona Diamondbacks. They are also now exactly three-fourths of the way through the 2018 season with 41 games remaining, so they’ve got that going for them.
Play Ball!
The Dodgers couldn’t have picked a worst time for the offense to go into this slump.
First all the money you guys get paid, buck up and start playing like major leaguers. Come on boys, and to act like idiots to the Giants, just gives them more fuel to bash the Dodgers😭
I am not too concerned. This might only be the team “trying too hard” in response to the Dodgers picking up Machado and Dozier. Just takes a little time for the dust to settle and for the new team to mesh. The pitching is another story, and I chalk that up to not enough games scheduled during spring training. They used to have way more split squad double games each day. I think the pitchers did not get enough time in, hence the rash of injuries.
Agree on the spring training thing. It was the shortage of ST games that led to Kenley’s slow start this season.
Wasn’t it about this time of year they had that major slump last year? Difference was, they had a huge lead going in, and still a big lead coming out.