It remains unclear exactly how much, if at all, the Dodgers will bolster their offense ahead of next week’s trade deadline.
But after a pitiful start to the month of July, their current lineup is finally showing renewed signs of life.
The Dodgers might not have bludgeoned the Boston Red Sox in a 5-2 win Friday — when they were without shortstop Mookie Betts while he was away with his family because of a personal situation — picking up their third victory in the last four games in a series-opener at Fenway Park.
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But, after averaging three runs per game with a .205 team batting average over the first nine games of July, they continued showing signs that the ship is turning around again, recording at least five runs for the seventh time in their last 10 games.
The most impactful performance Friday came from one of the Dodgers’ most disappointing hitters over the last two months: Veteran outfielder Teoscar Hernández.
After re-signing with the Dodgers (61-43) this offseason — over interest from several other teams, the Red Sox (55-50) chief among them — Hernández started the season hot before missing two weeks with an adductor strain in May. Ever since, the veteran had looked glaringly off, batting below .200 over 48 games.
Dodgers’ Will Smith scores on a sacrifice fly by teammate Andy Pages during the third inning against the Red Sox on Friday. (Mark Stockwell / Associated Press)
At the end of this past week’s homestand on Wednesday, however, Hernández recorded his first three-hit game since April. And on Friday, he kept the momentum going, drawing a run-scoring walk with the bases loaded in the third inning before belting a two-run insurance homer in the top of the eighth.
Andy Pages played a key role Friday, as well, continuing his own upward trajectory after a trying couple of weeks.
From June 26 to July 19, Pages saw what was once a near-.300 batting average tumble, hitting .206 over an 18-game stretch. The slide helped keep him from reaching the All-Star Game, then continued for the first two games coming out of the break — making him one of many Dodgers hitters mired in a midseason slump.
But in the last four games of the team’s recent homestand, Pages had two home runs and two multi-hit games.
On Friday, his recent surge continued, with Pages doubling and scoring in the second inning, hitting a sacrifice fly after Hernández’s walk in the third, and singling again after Hernández’s big fly in the eighth.
There were other bright spots in the Dodgers’ win. Will Smith went two for five to raise his National League-leading batting average to .325. Freddie Freeman had a pair of singles, recording consecutive multi-hit games for only the second time since early June. And while Shohei Ohtani saw his home run streak snapped at five games, he still managed to reach safely twice.
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Two hitters who could be more important to the Dodgers’ deadline calculus struggled, with Michael Conforto going only one for four (albeit with a sixth-inning double) and Hyeseong Kim extending his recent slump with a golden sombrero (four strikeouts).
But on the whole, the offense (which combined for 10 total hits, the third time that has happened in the last 10 games) did enough to back up a five-inning, two-run start from Emmet Sheehan and the first scoreless effort from the Dodgers’ beleaguered bullpen since July 3.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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