The Dodgers have gotten back to the basics this week, preaching the importance of the little things in daily hitters’ meetings, in-game dugout conversations and even simulated drills in early batting practice sessions.
After slumping for the last 2 ½ months, they were searching for a more dependable style of offense. Like simplifying their approach at the plate. Shortening up swings and using the big part of the field with two strikes. Capitalizing on situational opportunities with runners on base. And making sure that, amid a resurgence from their rotation, they were finding ways to more consistently manufacture runs.
This weekend in San Francisco, they finally enjoyed the fruits of those labors, blowing the Giants out 10-2 on Sunday to win a three-game series and remain 2 ½ games up in the National League West standings.
Coming off a 13-run outburst Saturday night, the Dodgers picked up right where they left off at Oracle Park on Sunday afternoon. They produced 18 hits: 16 were singles, the other two doubles. They drew six walks and saw 207 total pitches, slowly sucking the life out of a recently resurgent Giants team trying to sneak into the playoffs.
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Teoscar Hernández continued a recent surge with a team-high four hits, making him 11 for his last 24. Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Michael Conforto each had three knocks. Shohei Ohtani didn’t have one until the ninth, and it didn’t matter.
The onslaught started in the second inning, when two walks and a Freeman single loaded the bases, setting up Kiké Hernández for a sacrifice fly. It continued in the third, when a pair of productive outs (plus a bobbled ground ball from San Francisco third baseman Matt Chapman) turned singles from Betts and Teoscar Hernández into another hard-earned run.
Then, in the fifth, it all culminated in a four-run rally, one that knocked Giants starter Robbie Ray out of the game, and turned a low-scoring affair into a series rubber-match rout.
Freeman lined a double to right field, after Betts walked and Teoscar Hernández again singled. Conforto came off the bench for a two-run, pinch-hit, bases-loaded single that he managed to slap past a drawn-in infield. A run-scoring balk from reliever Joel Peguero added to the deluge, which included a pair of walks from Tommy Edman and Ben Rortvedt.
The Dodgers’ Tyler Glasnow pitched into the seventh inning on Sunday to pick up his second win in as many starts. (Godofredo A. Vásquez / Associated Press)
In the sixth, what was already a 6-1 lead was stretched a little further, with Miguel Rojas’ two-run single — with the bases loaded once more — putting the Dodgers’ sixth win in seven on ice. The Dodgers added more runs in the eighth and ninth.
It all represented a new look from the Dodgers’ star-studded offense, with only one of their 23 runs the last two days requiring a ball to go over the fence.
For much of the year, the team has been overly reliant on home runs, scoring via the long ball at the fifth-highest percentage in the majors (45%) at the end of play Friday. During their second-half slide, that dynamic had prevented them from working around injuries and mechanical flaws from much of the lineup, or finding alternative ways to build big innings and hang crooked numbers.
Hence, their recent re-emphasis on more dependable fundamentals — allowing them to paper-cut an opposing pitching staff to death in a way that is typically for success in October.
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The offense wasn’t the only positive sign Sunday.
On the mound, Tyler Glasnow was able to settle down after looking frustrated with his command early, when he walked four batters (and hit another) in his first three innings. At a point he has so often spiraled in his up-and-down Dodgers tenure, the right-hander instead found a rhythm by retiring 10 in a row, managed his pitch count to work into the seventh and lowered his ERA to 3.06 with a 6-⅔ inning, one-run outing.
Those are the kind of performances the Dodgers are banking on from their rotation in the playoffs. This is still a team that, at its core, will have to be carried by its pitching.
Still, the only way that strength will matter is if the lineup can find some long-awaited consistency. This weekend, signs of it finally arrived. Everything the Dodgers had been preaching at last came to fruition.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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