The Dodgers have gotten back to the basics this week, preaching the importance of the little things in daily hitters’ meetings, in-game dugout conversations and even simulated drills in early batting practice sessions.
After a 2 ½ month slump over the second half of the season, they were searching for a more dependable style of offense. Like simplifying their approach at the plate. Shortening up swings and using the big part of the field with two strikes. Capitalizing on situational opportunities with runners on base. And making sure that, amid a resurgence from their rotation, they were finding ways to more consistently manufacture runs.
This weekend in San Francisco, they finally enjoyed the fruits of those labors, blowing out the Giants 10-2 on Sunday to win a three-game series and remain 2 ½ games up in the National League West standings.
“Quality of at-bat, winning pitches, using the whole field, not punching [out] — I think all those things, you know it’s in there,” manager Dave Roberts said, after the Dodgers racked up 18 hits, worked six walks and scored in six of their nine trips to the plate.
“We’ve seen it. Maybe not with the consistency we would’ve liked. But when you’re facing really good arms, to see us do what we did... it’s certainly encouraging.”
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Indeed, coming off a 13-run outburst Saturday night, the Dodgers picked up right where they left off at Oracle Park on Sunday afternoon, slowly sucking the life out of a recently resurgent Giants team trying to sneak into the playoffs.
Teoscar Hernández continued a recent surge with a team-high four hits, making him 11 for his last 24. Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Michael Conforto each had three knocks, with Conforto’s day getting his batting average back to .200. As a team, the Dodgers combined for a whopping 16 singles while forcing 207 pitches from the Giants’ staff of arms. And most amazing, they did it with Shohei Ohtani reaching base only once, and that didn’t even happen until his sixth at-bat in the top of the ninth.
“It's quality at-bats, quality outs, moving guys over, getting sac flies, bringing defenses in if you move them over,” Freeman said. “It creates more traffic, more things that are able to happen on the baseball field. Just think the quality of at-bats have been really good over the last week."
The onslaught started in the second inning, when two walks and a Freeman single loaded the bases, setting up Kiké Hernández for a sacrifice fly. It continued in the third, when a pair of productive outs (plus a bobbled ground ball from San Francisco third baseman Matt Chapman) turned singles from Betts and Teoscar Hernández into another hard-earned run.
Then, in the fifth, it all culminated in a four-run rally, one that knocked Giants starter Robbie Ray out of the game, and turned a low-scoring affair into a series rubber-match rout.
Freeman lined a double to right field, after Betts walked and Teoscar Hernández again singled. Conforto came off the bench for a two-run, pinch-hit, bases-loaded single that he managed to slap past a drawn-in infield. A run-scoring balk from reliever Joel Peguero added to the deluge, which included a pair of walks from Tommy Edman and Ben Rortvedt.
In the sixth, what was already a 6-1 lead was stretched a little further, with Miguel Rojas’ two-run single — with the bases loaded once more — putting the Dodgers’ sixth win in seven on ice. The Dodgers nonetheless added more runs in both the eighth and ninth, giving them their first back-to-back double-digit run totals since all the way back at the end of April.
“It's definitely the kind of baseball we want to be playing down the stretch and for the rest of the season,” Conforto said. “I think we're doing a lot of the little things right. That's kind of been the theme as we finish up here.”
It all represented a new look from the Dodgers’ star-studded offense, with only one of their 23 runs the last two days requiring a ball to go over the fence.
For much of the year, the team has been overly reliant on home runs, scoring via the long ball at the fifth-highest percentage in the majors (45%) at the end of play Friday. During their second-half slide, that dynamic had prevented them from working around injuries and mechanical flaws from much of the lineup, or finding alternative ways to build big innings and hang crooked numbers.
Hence, their recent re-emphasis on more dependable fundamentals — allowing them to paper-cut an opposing pitching staff to death in a way that is typically for success in October.
“When you can be able to do it, and know you can do it, as we're leading up to that point [of the playoffs], it definitely is a big confidence booster,” Freeman said. “We don't have to rely on the two-run, three-run home run all the time. I think that was just big. The last week, [this is] what we've been trying to do. And we've been able to actually do it in the games."
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The offense wasn’t the only positive sign Sunday.
On the mound, Tyler Glasnow was able to settle down after looking frustrated with his command early, when he walked four batters (and hit another) in his first three innings. At a point he has so often spiraled in his up-and-down Dodgers tenure, the right-hander instead found a rhythm by retiring 10 in a row, managing to pitch into the seventh in a 6 ⅔ inning, one-run outing.
“It’s encouraging,” said Glasnow, who has a 3.06 ERA on the season and a 2.66 mark since returning from a shoulder injury in July “Since I got back from the IL, it’s been easier to kind of put [those kind of struggles] out of my head and go compete. If my stuff sucks, it’s kind of whatever. Just compete, try to get in the zone, get some weak contact. It’s helpful."
It led to the kind of performance the Dodgers are banking on from their rotation in the playoffs. This is still a team that, at its core, will have to be carried by its pitching.
The only way that strength will matter, however, is if the lineup can find some long-awaited consistency. This weekend, signs of it finally arrived. Everything the Dodgers had been preaching at last came to fruition.
“As we come down to the end [of the season, we’re] just kind of recognizing what it is that really puts us in the right spot to win games,” Conforto said. “It's go time now, and we got to do all those things if we want to get to where we want to get to."
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
