The Dodgers ended August on a high note with a win on Sunday in Detroit, but the month itself was quite mediocre, with an offense that left a lot to be desired.
The result was a losing month, going just 13-14 in August, following a ho-hum 13-11 in July. The Dodgers were outscored in July (113-105), and August was more of the same, scoring 104 runs and allowing 106. This marks the first time the Dodgers were outscored in consecutive months since April, May, and June 2013. That was the first season of a 13-year stretch of consecutive playoff berths, a streak that will hit 14 this year despite the last two months of meh.
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The main positive of August was getting both Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow back from months-long stints on the injured list, and putting the Dodgers postseason rotation in place, along with the acquisition of Tarik Skubal joining Yohsinobu Yamamoto. Those four combined for 2.22 ERA in 16 starts with 116 strikeouts against only 26 walks in 97 1/3 innings, with a 23.6-percent strikeout-minus-walk rate.
Roki Sasaki, Eric Lauer, Justin Wrobleski, and Emmet Sheehan combined for 11 starts, plus one relief appearance, with a collective 6.83 ERA, 16 home runs allowed, and a 9.9-percent strikeout-minus-walk rate. The Dodgers lost eight of their 11 starts.
Fun fact
Tommy Edman has been hit by 10 pitches this season, the most by a Dodger since Freddie Freeman in 2024. Five of those hit by pitches came in a 12-day span from August 17-28, after Edman was also hit by five pitches in July. Per the Dodgers, Edman is the first player in franchise history to get hit by five pitches two months in a row since Dan McGann in May and June 1899 for Brooklyn. The only other Dodgers player with two five-HBP months in the same season is Justin Turner, in April and September 2017.
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The Dodgers had their second straight month of offensive malaise, headlined by a road trip through Atlanta and Detroit last week that saw the Dodgers score only 17 runs in six games. The Dodgers scored two or fewer runs nine times during August, which was pretty much in line with the rest of their season.
Alex Call led the Dodgers with an .830 OPS in August, but only batted 22 times. The only other players with an OPS that started with an eight were Max Muncy (.828, 19 RBI) and Andy Pages (.802 in 19 games before a fastball broke his hand).
Freddie Freeman had no home runs in his 26 games in August, with a 96 wRC+. Regulars Mookie Betts (97 wRC+), Teoscar Hernández (89 wRC+), Kyle Tucker (69 wRC+) and Edman (67 wRC+) were all below average offensively.
They couldn’t get much traction against opposing starting pitchers. Excluding the three games at Coors Field from August 17-19, starting pitchers against the Dodgers in August had a 3.29 ERA while averaging 5.58 innings per start.
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The difference over the last two months for the Dodgers has been the lack of big games, scoring six runs or more only six times in August, their worst such month of the season.
|
Month |
0-2 runs |
6+ runs |
Runs/game |
wRC+ |
|
Mar/Apr |
8 (1-7) |
13 (12-1) |
5.39 (4th) |
121 (1st) |
|
May |
8 (0-8) |
8 (8-0) |
5.25 (4th) |
116 (2nd) |
|
June |
9 (3-6) |
12 (11-1) |
5.44 (4th) |
119 (5th) |
|
July |
6 (2-4) |
7 (5-2) |
4.38 (17th) |
95 (20th) |
|
August |
9 (2-7) |
6 (5-1) |
3.85 (24th) |
91 (22nd) |
(MLB ranks)
Not being able to blow teams out led to a lot of closer games, with 15 of the Dodgers’ 27 August games decided by one run. The Dodgers were 7-8 in those games.
On the season, the Dodgers are 29-14 in blowouts, games decided by five or more runs, tied for the second-most blowout runs in MLB. But that’s after having only two such wins in July, and only two blowout wins in August — on August 17 at Coors Field, and Sunday in Detroit.
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After slugging only .395 in July, they slugged just .378 during August, ninth-lowest in MLB. Two powerless months in a row was only one fewer than the total number of sub-.400 slugging months the Dodgers had in the previous seven seasons combined.
Up next
Only four weeks remain in the regular season, and the Dodgers play 25 games in 27 days beginning Tuesday. Fifteen of the final 25 games are at Dodger Stadium, and the Dodgers in September only play two series against teams with winning records — the 69-68 Marlins (September 11-13 in Miami) and 72-65 Padres (September 22-24 in Los Angeles).
Read the full article here