ST. LOUIS — It has been a slow week for the Dodgers’ offense.
Starting with soft-tossing left-hander Ryan Yarbrough on Sunday, the Dodgers have faced a series of starting pitchers equipped with offspeed arsenals rather than high-octane fastballs. The latest, veteran right-hander Sonny Gray, took a shutout into the seventh inning as the Dodgers lost, 5-0, to the St. Louis Cardinals in a game that was delayed 77 minutes at the start by rain.
“I mean, we had 10 hits today. We just didn’t string them together in the way that we should,” Tommy Edman said. “Sonny did a great job in making his pitches. He’s got some really good breaking balls, really good offspeed.
“Guys who are able to keep us off balance and throw multiple pitches for strikes, I think they give just about anybody trouble. I don’t think it’s just our team. Some of those guys have had success in this league, and Sonny has had success in this league for a long time. We definitely can hit better than we have this past week but we’re not going to panic about it or anything.”
The Dodgers have been held to 17 runs over the past six games while facing starting pitchers Yarbrough, Paul Blackburn, Tylor Megill, Griffin Canning, David Peterson and Gray. Only Megill and Canning reached the major-league average for fastball velocity this season (93.8 mph) – Canning relied more on his slider and changeup than his fastball against the Dodgers while Megill threw his slider and curveball more than his fastball.
It has been a steady diet of sliders and sweepers, curveballs and changeups and the Dodgers have scored just eight runs on 29 hits over 36⅓ innings against that six-pack of pitchers – and they have lost four of the six games.
Gray’s fastball touched 94 mph three times, all during a fifth-inning at-bat against Mookie Betts – he popped out. His six-pitch mix – four-seam fastball, sinking two-seamer, slider, cutter, curveball, changeup – generated 16 swings-and-misses among his 90 pitches in 6⅓ innings.
“I don’t know. That’s, like, really deep,” Betts when asked about the game plan among opposing pitchers recently. “I haven’t paid that much attention to what they’re doing to us as a team. It’s hard enough to take care of my own stuff. I know regardless we have to have better team approach especially with guys in scoring position. But that’s part of the game.”
It’s a part of the game the Dodgers have been very good at this season. They came into the game leading the majors with a .313 average with runners in scoring position but went 1 for 10 in those situations against Gray and 1 for 13 in the game.
“I thought we put some hits together. We had 10, 11 hits,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “With runners in scoring position, there was a little more chase. You could see they went soft in those spots. I think we expanded a little bit. One part of the equation is getting on base. The other part is driving them in.
“We’re a really good fastball-hitting team and when there’s stress teams are showing that they’re getting us to chase down below. … It’s really trying to lock into your zone and not expanding. That’s a big part of hitting and that’s a hard part of hitting. But we’re going to have to continue to get better.”
Betts doubled with one out in the first inning but was stranded there. Andy Pages and Michael Conforto singled in the second inning but were stranded at the corners. Shohei Ohtani and Betts led off the third with singles but never advanced. Teoscar Hernandez doubled with out in the sixth and went to third on Pages’ infield single in the sixth. They were stranded.
Dodgers spot starter Justin Wrobleski was less adept at wriggling away from dangerous situations.
He gave up a two-out, two-run home run to Pedro Pages in the second inning then walked two in the fifth to set up Brendan Donovan’s two-out, two-run single.
“I thought I threw the ball well for the most part. I had one inning where i kind of got out of sync,” said Wrobleski, who completed six innings for the first time in the majors and threw a career-high 104 pitches. “Other than that, I thought I threw the ball well and made some improvements, kind of got back to myself, getting back to how I pitch. All in all, I’m pretty happy with the way the process was today. I think just as easily as it was four runs it could have been zero.”