After an ugly stretch involving the club’s worst losing streak in recent years, the Los Angeles Dodgers have won five of their last six games thanks to some timely hitting and solid pitching against the Mets and Rockies.
Although the club’s current offensive output hasn’t been anywhere near the numbers it produced over the first several weeks of the season, the team seems to be doing just enough to put themselves in the winning column, albeit against some of the worst teams in the league.
Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman made the most noise on offense in the club’s 4-0 victory in Sunday’s finale against division-rival Colorado. Betts hit a home run down the left-field line to open the scoring in the bottom of the first inning, notching the 52nd leadoff homer of his career. Freeman’s blast to center field three at-bats later stretched the lead to two runs.
Freeman finished the day with a homer and three walks. He has now reached base in six of his last seven plate appearances, stepping up his game among what can still be considered one of the club’s poorest offensive stretches of the season, aside from the 10-run output against the Mets in last Wednesday’s series finale.
Max Muncy, who is tied for third on the team with nine long balls, doesn’t appear to be anywhere near returning. According to Bill Plunkett of the Orange County Register, Muncy was feeling great and even took batting practice for two consecutive days before the team left for Cincinnati last weekend. However, when he began ramping up for his return, Muncy said he felt his oblique flare up again, keeping him shutdown from baseball activities ever since.
“I don’t think anybody has a timetable because we can’t really put one on it,” Muncy told Plunkett. “It’s probably the worst injury you can have as a position player because you can’t do anything. You can’t strengthen it. You can’t strengthen the area around it. You can’t do anything with the rest of your body because you have to involve your core to do that. You have to just sit and let it heal and that’s where we’re at.”
Despite the sluggish offense, the team has been staying in ball games thanks to some steady solid pitching. Gavin Stone picked up his sixth win of the season after throwing five scoreless innings, scattering four hits and two walks while striking out six.
Stone has emerged among the team’s early-season leaders in the starting pitching department. There was no clear reason for pulling the youngster after just 75 pitches on Sunday, aside from the fact that he was pitching on only four days of rest, which might have been normal in any other baseball universe.
Regardless, the Dodgers head eastbound to Pittsburgh to start a three-game set against the Pirates beginning on Tuesday. Tentatively lining up to start for the Dodgers are Tyler Glasnow, James Paxton and Walker Buehler, respectively.