LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers finally held a lead on Monday night. That alone felt like progress for a team mired in one of its toughest stretches of the season. It was their first advantage since Friday, when they managed to scratch together three runs against Chris Sale in what seemed like one of their finest wins of the year. But since then, the momentum has vanished, and the Dodgers have dropped three straight games.
After losing 7-2 on consecutive days to close out the series against the Atlanta Braves, the Dodgers fell 9-3 to the San Francisco Giants on Monday night. The game was tied 3-3 after six innings, but the bullpen unraveled. Alex Vesia surrendered three hits and a walk while recording just one out in a three-run seventh inning. Then Wyatt Mills walked four batters and hit another in a three-run ninth, turning a close contest into a lopsided defeat.
A 6-3 deficit would have been tough enough, especially against the worst offense in Major League Baseball. But the Dodgers' bats have gone quiet. They've been held to three runs or fewer in nine of their last 12 games, a troubling trend for a lineup packed with All-Stars.
"The effort, the focus is there, I thought the fight was there. You know, we're going to come out of it," manager Dave Roberts said Monday night. "It's frustrating while you're in it, but we just have too much talent and too much desire to keep doing this for much longer."
History is not on their side. Three straight blowout losses—by five runs or more—ties a Los Angeles Dodgers franchise record, last set on June 12-14, 2008. That's a mark no team wants to match.
The Dodgers are turning to their two best starting pitchers in the next two games, hoping to lower the threshold for victory. Yoshinobu Yamamoto takes the mound on Tuesday, followed by Shohei Ohtani on Wednesday. But Ohtani the hitter is struggling through one of his worst stretches in years. His .404 slugging percentage over the first 38 games is his lowest in any such span since 2021 with the Angels. Roberts confirmed Monday that Ohtani will not hit in one of the final two games of the series.
Ohtani isn't alone in his offensive struggles. Teoscar Hernández has been fighting through a rough patch, and he didn't record an extra-base hit in the series opener. For a team built on star power and high expectations, the Dodgers are searching for answers—and hoping their talent and determination will soon turn things around.