DETROIT — For the past two months, the Dodgers’ lineup has been a disappointment.
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Since July 1, the Dodgers have scored 209 runs (4.1 per game, down from 5.4 per game before July). No National League team has touched home plate safely fewer times since the start of July. Their team OPS in July (.711) and August (.689) ranks 20th in MLB. They averaged just 3.85 runs per game in August when they went, not surprisingly, 13-14.
And this is not new. In fact, these midseason slumps seem to be a feature not a bug in recent seasons. In 2025, for example, the Dodgers trudged through July with a team OPS of .677 that ranked 26th in MLB.
It’s not what is expected of a lineup featuring three former league MVPs and as many as seven former All-Stars on any given night.
So – are we expecting too much from the Dodgers’ lineup?
“No. I don’t think you can expect too much of us. And we like that. We like that you think we should be scoring more,” first baseman Freddie Freeman said to that. “If you were content with us scoring three, four runs then we wouldn’t have a very good offense. I’m okay with you guys expecting more out of us. We expect more out of ourselves.”
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts takes a similar approach to the question.
“I don’t know. I would say, ‘No,’” he said. “Expectation for our offense is a good thing. It speaks to the talent we have.
“I expect more from our offense. And I think they do as well. … I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
And there it is – “the talent we have.” It’s the names in the Dodgers’ lineup that create the expectations which they aren’t meeting.
To steal a phrase Roberts often uses, the “back of their baseball cards” shows what the Dodgers’ hitters are capable of doing. But for most of them, the back of their baseball cards includes their prime years and numbers that they might not be capable of matching at this point in their careers.
For the second year in a row, the Dodgers’ have the highest average age for position players (30.9).
Thirty-two-year-old Shohei Ohtani is not going to have another 50/50 season. Thirty-three-year-old Mookie Betts’ OPS is on a four-year decline. Thirty-three-year-old Teoscar Hernandez has had an .800 OPS just once in his past four seasons. Even the 36-year-old Freeman, whose batting average is on par with his career number, is also headed to his lowest slugging percentage and OPS since 2012.
Expecting them to produce at the level of their younger selves might be a recipe for disappointment.
“I absolutely agree with that,” Roberts said. “That’s just Father Time. That’s reality.
“I think the reason people do have big expectations is the track record. But I still don’t expect this team offensively to fall off a cliff. … In the last two months, yes (it has).”
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Betts agrees. But he adds another factor – hitting has gotten harder since they put up those numbers on the backs of their baseball cards. Every pitcher seems to throw 100 mph – or higher – these days and “a computer tells him (the pitcher) what to throw to get you out. And a computer tells them (the defense) where to play to get you out.”
“That was when guys were throwing 92, 93 when we did that. And we were younger, yes,” Betts said of the prime years of the Dodgers’ stars, exaggerating how quickly velocity has jumped in MLB.
“I don’t care who you are. You can be Shohei or anybody, the best player in the league. You’re not hitting 100 (mph) consistently every day. Nobody is doing that. We’re facing 97, 98 every day. Then the guys who are 92, 93 – there’s something to it. Sometimes we hit it. Sometimes we don’t. That’s part of the human element of the game. But I think that part is getting missed. Y’all expect us to score six or seven (runs) every day, you know what I’m saying?
“The game is way harder than people give credit to. They think it doesn’t matter who’s pitching, we’re going to hit them. Shohei’s going to hit a homer (every at-bat).”
Freeman pushes back only a little.
“Obviously we’re almost in September so if guys are career .280 hitters and they’re hitting .240, are they going to be at .280 this year? No,” he said. “If you’re not having the season you want, can you be better? Yes. Let’s just throw out Mookie last year. He says, ‘I’m done with this season. Let’s just focus on winning.’ If you’re having a season like that then you’ve got to switch the mindset to ‘We’ve got to win.’ I’m sure there’s a couple guys in here that want to switch it.
“Are they going to get close to the back of their baseball card this year? Probably not. That’s okay. It happens. As long as you get hot and we play well in October.”
Or not.
The Dodgers won the World Series last year without their offense ever getting hot. Take away the warm-up round Wild Card Series against the Cincinnati Reds and the Dodgers batted just .213 in the final three rounds of the postseason and averaged 3.6 runs per game. They were outhit .269 to .203 by the Toronto Blue Jays in their epic seven-game World Series.
Starting pitching carried the Dodgers last October and they have lined up another potent rotation – Tarik Skubal, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell and either Tyler Glasnow or Ohtani – capable of carrying the load in October if the offensive support continues to be meager.
“I don’t like that,” Roberts said. “And I think if you look at the performance, that’s the way people see it and understandably so. But for me, I want our offense to drive this postseason.
“Certainly hitting is harder in the postseason. We all understand that. … Winning is great, but you don’t ever want to feel we won in spite of X or Y and in this particular case it’s our offense.”
Freeman said the Dodgers’ hitters are fully on board with that.
“We’ve already had meetings where we’ve said, ‘Let’s not have the pitching carry us,’” Freeman said. “(On the way to winning the World Series) in 2024 we were almost one or two as the best offense in the postseason. Last year it was not. Maybe this year it will be combined.
“We’ll just do everything perfect.”
UP NEXT
Cardinals (RHP Michael McGreevy, 5-9, 3.86 ERA) at Dodgers (LHP Eric Lauer, 8-6, 4.78 ERA), Tuesday, 7:10 p.m., SportsNet LA, 570 AM