LOS ANGELES — With all their financial might, the Dodgers couldn’t buy a hit when they needed it most.
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The Dodgers’ bid for a three-peat came to an end, in large part because their star-studded lineup managed just four hits in 27 at-bats with runners in scoring position while losing all four games of the National League Championship Series against the Milwaukee Brewers.
Was it the excellence of the Brewers’ pitchers or the failure of the Dodgers’ hitters in those moments?
“It’s a little bit of both,” Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy said. “I think it’s their bullpen being extremely good and making pitches, and then I think it’s us just not getting the job done, but ultimately, that’s why this damn thing is so hard, you know? Just getting to the end is just really, really, really hard. I don’t know if people talk about it enough, but you have to have a lot of things go your way. You have to have a little luck. You have to have skill. You have to have talent. You have to have decisions, and it all has to kind of go your way to get to the end and we just didn’t have it this year.”
There were signs in the second half of the season that the Dodgers weren’t firing on all cylinders, when their offense began to slow down. And even in winning their NL Division Series against the Atlanta Braves, their power covered up the problem.
The Dodgers managed to hit eight homers in that series, accounting for 11 of their 14 runs.
They were 1 for 16 with runners in scoring position. For the postseason, they were 5 for 43.
Two of those hits came in the second inning on Thursday, when Andy Pages punched a run-scoring single up the middle and then Shohei Ohtani hit a three-run homer.
At that point, the Dodgers had a 4-0 lead and the ballpark was rocking. The party seemed like it was just starting, but it was actually ending.
The Dodgers didn’t get another hit with a runner in scoring position in the game.
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“I don’t know,” outfielder Teoscar Hernandez said. “I think better decisions when it comes to swinging the bat. But sometimes you’ve got to give the other side credit, you know? They have one of the best bullpens in the history of baseball. It’s hard when you’re facing a guy that is attacking you with everything that they got and and making pitches, being aggressive and you don’t get the results that you want.”
The final four innings of Game 4 were particularly painful for the Dodgers. Just after the Brewers took a 5-4 lead in the top of the sixth, the Dodgers had a runner in scoring position in three straight innings.
The Dodgers went hitless in six official at-bats with runners in scoring position – plus one sacrifice. In two of those, they had a runner at third with less than two outs.
The frustrating sequence began when Kyle Tucker ripped a one-out double in the sixth, but Hernandez grounded out and Muncy struck out.
In the seventh, Pages led off with a double. After Kiké Hernandez bunted him to third, Ohtani struck out on three pitches and then Mookie Betts grounded out.
With one out in the eighth, Will Smith ripped one down the right field line, for a double, and he took third base as the ball skipped past right fielder Sal Frelick.
Just 90 feet from a tie game, the Dodgers came up empty again. Tucker hit a fly ball to shallow center field and then Hernandez struck out.
The Dodgers went down in order in the ninth, ending their season.
Afterward, first baseman Freddie Freeman was asked how “deflating” it was to continually come up empty in so many opportunities when they just needed a hit.
“Everything’s deflating now,” Freeman said. “I know there wasn’t one pitch, one at-bat. They just outplayed us in the series, which is kind of how it goes. We had our opportunities. We didn’t get the job done.”
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