ST. LOUIS –– Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said he had a “good feeling” about his slumping offense at the start of a six-game road trip Friday afternoon.
“The road, ironically, has been better for us,” he insisted.
By the end of the night, however, that theory couldn’t have felt less true.
En route to losing three straight games for the first time this year, the Dodgers star-studded lineup remained ice cold in a 7-2 defeat to the St. Louis Cardinals, managing just five hits against a Cardinals pitching staff with the fifth-worst team ERA in the majors.
For a fourth-straight game, the Dodgers (20-12) failed to hit a home run, the longest homer drought for the club since June 2023. And the few times they did get runners aboard, they couldn’t capitalize, going 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position while leaving eight men stranded on base.
They initially got on the board via a Max Muncy RBI double in the second. But after that, they’d score just one more time, failing to record another extra-base hit until Hyeseong Kim’s double with two outs in the ninth.
It didn’t help that, early on Friday, the Cardinals (19-13) jumped out to a 3-0 first-inning lead against Emmet Sheehan.
Still, for a Dodgers team that has invested more than $1 billion into its batting order in recent years, this recent slump is starting to grow maddening. They’re now 5-8 in their last 13 games, and have scored at least five runs only five times in that stretch.
The search for good feelings, or performances at the plate, goes on.
As part of his optimistic pregame message, Roberts said he wanted his hitters to be “really locking in on our zones, having a plan, and then going and executing.”
Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos
