After a lackluster offensive performance Tuesday night, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts implored his team to “to have a better plan” at the plate.
An afternoon later, however, the club was still searching.
In a 3-2 loss to the Miami Marlins on Wednesday, the Dodgers not only dropped a three-game series to a rebuilding opponent, but raised renewed questions about their inconsistent lineup.
They managed only seven hits. They went just 2-for-11 with runners in scoring positions. And despite having the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth, they came up empty on a game-ending double-play from Freddie Freeman.
Outside of a three-run walk-off rally in Monday’s ninth-inning, they combined for only five runs in the series’ other 26 innings.
Granted, on Wednesday, they were facing a former Cy Young winner in Sandy Alcantara, who scattered all seven hits over a six-inning, two-run start.
Still, for a Dodgers team that has put up big overall numbers this season, but shown repeated flashes of inconsistency through this opening month, their seventh loss in the last 12 games was yet another disappointment.
The Dodgers (20-11) had chances to break Wednesday’s game open.
Four different times, they had a runner at second with no outs in an inning.
Capitalizing on such opportunities, though, once again proved difficult. They might have been held scoreless, if not for a little good luck.
The Dodgers’ first run only scored when Miami shortstop Otto Lopez lost a two-out infield pop-up from Alex Call in the sun, letting it drop for the most fortuitous of infield singles. The next came in the sixth, when Dalton Rushing followed Kyle Tucker’s leadoff double with a soft bloop single that managed to find grass in right field.
Beyond that, they managed nothing else, going without a home run for the sixth time in the last nine games.
The Marlins’ only damage against Dodgers starter Tyler Glasnow, on the other hand, came via the long ball, with Liam Hicks going deep in the second and former Dodgers outfielder Esteury Ruiz doing the same in the fifth.
Outside of that, Glasnow only faced trouble when he invited it upon himself. He walked six batters (tying a career high) but stranded all of them. He racked up nine total strikeouts, including six in a row at one point, but could only get through 5 ⅔ innings because of his high pitch count.
Still, the game was tied 2-2 until the eighth, when the Marlins (15-16) scored the decisive run on Javier Sanoja’s RBI single against Will Klein.
And though the Dodgers loaded the bases in the ninth on three walks –– two from Hyeseong Kim and Alex Call to lead the inning off, then another when Shohei Ohtani was intentionally put aboard following a sacrifice bunt –– Freeman couldn’t make it count, bouncing a grounder to second base where Xavier Edwards fielded the ball, tagged out Ohtani, and stepped on first ahead of Freeman to end the game.
