Dodgers can’t produce enough offense yet again, drop second straight

Wednesday was a getaway day for the Dodgers, the final game of a six-game homestand before a weeklong trip to St. Louis and Houston. And that’s a good thing, first baseman Freddie Freeman said, because there are a number of players on the team who could really use a getaway, Freeman chief among them.

With Wednesday’s 3-2 morning loss to the Miami Marlins, the Dodgers (20-11) lost back-to-back at home for the first time this season. In those two games, the Dodgers scored just three runs, scored four for 18 with men in scoring position, and left 16 runners on base. And the final outs Wednesday came when Freeman, batting with the bases loaded and one out, launched into a bizarre, unassisted double play with Marlins second baseman Xavier Edwards fielding the ball, scoring Shohei Ohtani as he threw it back to first, then dragging his foot on the bag to pick Freeman out.

“I hit it right at the second baseman. He hit Ohtani and scored first,” Freeman offered in a precise, if unrevealing, explanation.

Freeman was similarly brief when asked to discuss a slump in which he hit .138 over his last seven games with as many strikeouts as hits.

“I would have fixed it already if I had known,” he said through gritted teeth when asked what the problem was. “I had pitches to hit. I just didn’t hit them. I mean, I had strikes, I swung the strikes, I didn’t make the strikes, so…”

So it hosts Thursday’s off day, the Dodgers’ first in two weeks.

“A day off,” he said with a sigh, “that will help.” »

Manager Dave Roberts hopes that’s not just true for Freeman. Outfielder Teos-car Hernández and catcher Will Smith have hit .149 combined over their last seven games, and outfielder Kyle Tucker has hit .237 over the last 15.

“Right now, Freddie’s not feeling well. He’s not swinging it well,” Roberts said. “Will is trying to find his way. Tucker is starting to find his way to get the barrel on the ball. Teo has calmed down a little bit. In general, we’re just not all there. There are more guys who

things are not going well at the moment [than those] this is the case.

But if that’s the bad news, here’s the good: Despite the crisis, the Dodgers left for the airport Wednesday afternoon second in the National League with 20 wins and ranked in the top three in the majors in runs, batting, on-base percentage, slugging and OPS.

“Hitting is definitely cyclical,” Roberts said. “All in all, we’re near the top. The last 10 days, it just hasn’t been in sync. You’d like everyone to get a good start, but a lot of guys aren’t performing on the back of their baseball cards.”

If the manager was trying to keep the Dodgers’ hitting woes in perspective, his first baseman was praising the starting pitcher after another brilliant start from Tyler Glasnow, who allowed three hits in 52/3 innings, striking out nine. However, he left with nothing to show for it.

“Luckily we have some really, really good pitchers,” Freeman said. “It’s thanks to them that we have a chance to win every game.”

Glasnow certainly gave them that chance again. When Miami’s Liam Hicks threw the first pitch of the second inning into the lower stands just inside the right-field foul pole, it was the first run Glasnow had given up in his last 12 innings. He didn’t give up until the fifth, when his former teammate Esteury Ruiz hit his first home run of the season into the first row of the left field pavilion.

Between the two, the right-hander struck out seven and the Dodgers accepted a gift when Max Muncy led off the second inning with a double off the glove of Marlins center fielder Jakob Marsee, then scored two outs later when shortstop Otto Lopez lost Alex Call’s popup into the bright midday sky.

The Dodgers had Miami’s Sandy Alcantara on the ropes most of the afternoon, putting runners on in five of the six innings he pitched. But after a marred run in the second, they couldn’t break through until the sixth.

Tucker led off that inning with a double to right center, moved to third on a groundout, then scored on Dalton Rushing’s two-strike single to right. But Alcantara escaped when Alex Freeland bounced to second with two runners on.

After that, it became a battle between the relievers – a battle the Marlins won when Javier Sanoja hit a two-out single against reliever Will Klein in the eighth, scoring Edwards. It proved the difference when Freeman, with a chance to be the hero, grounded into a double play with the winning run at second base.

Now, a day off, which Freeman said couldn’t have come at a better time. “I hope with this day off,” he said, “we’ll get back to it.”