Although they have cooled off a little over the past week, the National League West second-place San Diego Padres have been playing exceptionally good baseball over the last month.
The NL West first-place Los Angeles Dodgers have not.
In fact, over the past six weeks, the Dodgers saw their once 9.0-game lead in the division dwindle down to a zero-games lead and it now sits at a precarious 1.0 games.

As for that L2 thing, those were back-to-back losses to the NL West third-place Arizona Diamondbacks – at Dodger Stadium – by scores of 3-0 and 6-1 respectively.
“The last couple nights, at some points, it was an unrecognizable ball club,” a noticeably upset Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters following Saturday’s loss. “We’re still in a decent spot, but we’ve gotta go play. We’ve gotta play better.”

(SportsNet LA)
“Decent” is clearly in the eye of the beholder.
The Dodgers lone run on Saturday came on a two-out single to center by Dodgers
shortstop Mookie Betts.

Betts – 1
(SportsNet LA)
“We’ve come out pretty flat the last two games after the day off. We can’t keep doing this,” Dodgers third baseman Kiké Hernández said postgame on Saturday. “We need to be more consistent.”
An excellent assessment.

(SportsNet LA)
Needless to say, if Dave Roberts’ team doesn’t start playing like a first-place team, they soon will not be.
Play Ball!
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