Back on August 6, ThinkBlueLA ran an article entitled Have the Dodgers finally found their missing element? – an article which pointed out that with the additions of Manny Machado and Brian Dozier to their everyday lineup, the Dodgers immediately became a better base stealing team; thus bringing back an element that has been seriously missing from their game for many years, if not decades.

When that article ran a short three weeks ago, the 2018 Dodgers had stolen only 33 bases and ranked 14th out of the 15 National League teams, ahead of only the Miami Marlins, who had swiped only 28 bags.

Well guess what? In the 22 days since that article ran, the Dodgers have stolen 27 additional bases.

With his two stolen bases during the second inning of Saturday night’s exciting 12th-inning / 5-4 walk-off win over the NL West last place San Diego Padres at Dodger Stadium, Yasiel Puig gave the Dodgers their 28th and 29th stolen bases since the All-Star break, tops in the National League during that time.

Even though Puig stole second and third base rather handily off of Padres right-hander Brett Kennedy on Saturday night, like most other Dodgers base thieves since the All-Star break, he was left stranded on base. (Video capture courtesy of SportsNet LA)

Here are the Dodgers base stealers since the July 17 Mid-Summer Classic:

• Yasiel Puig – 6
• Cody Bellinger – 5
• Manny Machado – 5 (one in July)
• Chris Taylor – 5
• Brian Dozier – 3
• Austin Barnes – 1
• Yasmani Grandal – 1 (no, really)
• Kiké Hernandez – 1
• Max Muncy – 1
• Justin Turner – 1

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the Dodgers are a combined 3-for-27 with runners in scoring position following a successful stolen base since the All-Star break, of which only four have scored. This equates to an abysmal .111 batting average. (And we wonder why the Dodgers trail the second place Colorado Rockies by one game and the first place Arizona Diamondbacks by two games in the NL West standings).

With 31 games remaining in the 2018 regular season, matching the 77 total bases that the Dodgers stole during their 2017 National League Championship season is very doable. However, if they are to have any hopes of winning their franchise record-setting sixth consecutive NL West title, they absolutely positively need to begin converting their stolen bases into runs – period.