During their weeks-long slump as an offense, the Dodgers’ primary problems were simple.
They weren’t slugging the ball, and they weren’t capitalizing on situational opportunities.
In a 4-0 win over the Giants on Wednesday, they finally found a way to do both.
On a night Shohei Ohtani continued his dominant start to the season as a pitcher –– spinning seven scoreless innings with eight strikeouts to lower his ERA to 0.82 –– the Dodgers’ Ohtani-less lineup found a way to supply him with plenty of support.
In the third inning, Santiago Espinal and Mookie Betts hit back-to-back home runs, marking just the second time this year the Dodgers had gone deep in consecutive at-bats.
Then, in the fourth, they doubled the lead with a couple of manufactured runs, getting an RBI single from Teoscar Hernández and a sacrifice fly from Alex Call.
It wasn’t exactly a breakout performance from the Dodgers’ offense, which was the primary culprit behind the team’s 9-14 skid entering Wednesday.
But it didn’t need to be given the way Ohtani pitched, with the two-way star turning in his best performance on the mound in a season that has included nothing but gems (he has gone at least six innings, and given up no more than two earned runs in all seven outings this year).
What it means
At a bare minimum, the Dodgers (25-18) avoided what would have been a season-long five-game losing streak, snapping their second four-game skid in the last two weeks with the kind of solid all-around performance that has evaded them too often lately.
The team is still in second place in the National League West, a half-game behind the San Diego Padres.
They are still nowhere near playing the kind of baseball they expect, either, as they failed to score in their final four trips to the plate Wednesday.
But, Wednesday could nonetheless be a start, preserving their chance to salvage a four-game series split against the Giants (18-25) this week while dialing down some of the simmering frustration that had accompanied their recent skid.
Who’s hot
Since dropping him out of the two-spot in the batting order, the Dodgers are finally starting to see the version of Kyle Tucker they expected when they signed him to a $240 million contract this offseason.
On Wednesday, Tucker doubled in each of his first two at-bats, the latter helping spark the club’s two-run rally in the fourth.
Over his last 19 games (coinciding with his move down to the middle of the order), he is now batting .297 with 10 doubles and a .910 OPS.
Who’s not
Any lineup that has to face Ohtani right now.
The Giants became the latest victims, struggling to even put the right-hander under stress during his season-high 105-pitch, four-hit outing.
Instead, Ohtani attacked them with triple-digit heaters (topping out at 100.6 mph). He put them away with a flurry of wicked sweepers (they went 1-for-11 against the pitch with four strikeouts).
And then, as if he needed any help, they even gifted him the final out of his night, when Willy Adames (apparently forgetting how many outs there were in the seventh) got doubled off at second base on a routine fly ball for an inning-ending double-play.
Ohtani’s 0.82 ERA remains the best in the majors, and is the second-lowest by a Dodgers pitcher seven starts into a season; trailing only Fernando Valenzuela’s 0.29 mark to begin his historic 1981 campaign.
Up next
The Dodgers will try to keep the momentum going in Thursday’s series finale, when Emmet Sheehan (2-1, 4.79 ERA) squares off against San Francisco right-hander Landen Roupp (5-3, 3.09 ERA).
