They’re back to hitting home runs, they’re back to scoring runs, and they’re back to looking as if they might actually be invincible.
Something like this was bound to happen for the Dodgers, whose 4-2 victory over the Phillies on Friday night was their 13th win in 15 games.
They have found whatever it was searching for on offense earlier this month, and don’t be surprised if their lead in the National League West extends to double digits over the next few weeks.
They now have a lineup that can down a pitcher the caliber of Zach Wheeler, which is what they did in the opener of their three-game series against the Phillies at Uniqlo Field.
The Dodgers collected only five hits in the six innings pitched by Wheeler but four of them were home runs – enough to carry them to their sixth consecutive victory on a night on which Justin Wrobleski limited the visitors to one run and one hit over seven innings.
Freddie Freeman homered in the first inning, followed by Max Muncy in the second, Shohei Ohtani in the third and Will Smith in the fifth.
“We didn’t have a whole lot of traffic out there,” Muncy said, “but we took advantage of the few mistakes he made.”
The Dodgers have homered 25 times in their last 15 games, scoring an average of 6.27 runs per game over that stretch.
They homered just 20 times in the 23 games before that, a period over which they averaged 4.17 runs and lost 14 times.
“I think there’s more intent,” manager Dave Roberts said. “We hit four homers tonight, didn’t put a lot of hits together, but I still thought we were on the aggressive side of things offensively.”
While they were in slumping, the prevailing opinion in the clubhouse was that many of their players were still working out early-season glitches in their swings. The numbers over the last couple of weeks point to them now being past that stage.
“I don’t know what guys are working on now, but it was one of those stretches, like I told you guys, where it was a lull in the season,” Muncy said. “It’s one of the ups and downs. I also told you we’d be playing really good in about two weeks from then, and here we are.”
Now, imagine how much better the Dodgers will be when Ohtani really starts hitting.
While Ohtani has produced seven multi-hit efforts in his last 14 games as a designated hitter, he still hasn’t displayed consistent power. Even after going deep in each of his last two games, he remains 12 home runs behind major league leader Kyle Schwarber, who has 22.
In a postgame interview with Japanese broadcaster NHK, Ohtani said his third-inning homer on Friday was hit off the end of his bat.
When speaking about his improved rhythm in the batter’s box, he pointed to how his two singles were to center field.
“I have a good feel hitting,” Ohtani said in Japanese. “I said this last time as well, but if I can improve my launch angles, I think those can be extra-base hits.”
Roberts was encouraged by what he saw from the Ohtani.
How he homered on a pitch that he didn’t barrel up. How he worked the count full and lined a backdoor curveball to center field. How he singled up the middle against left-handed reliever Tim Mayza.
“That’s when you know he’s locked in,” Roberts said.
Roberts was equally, if not more, upbeat when talking about the offense as a whole. Citing a recent series win in San Diego in which the Dodgers scored nine runs in three games, Roberts liked how the lineup has managed to be productive enough to beat top-class pitching.
“I still felt with the pitching we were facing (in San Diego), we still swung the bats well,” Roberts said.
The win against Wheeler was another example of that.
Muncy liked how even though his team was now the hottest in baseball, it didn’t feel as if it was.
“Honestly, it just feels like we’re showing up every day and playing baseball,” Muncy said. “That’s how it felt when we were playing bad and that’s how it feels when we’re playing good. That’s the way you want it to be. You want to go out there and do your work every single day. You don’t want to chase the highs. You don’t want to lull in the lows. You want to go about your business every day and that’s what it feels like we’re doing.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: nypost.com
