Dormant Dodgers offense drags them to fourth straight loss

CINCINNATI — Dave Roberts’ lineup card Saturday once again put a spotlight on what has been a pressing issue for the Los Angeles Dodgers manager’s star-laden roster.

The Dodgers own the most top-heavy lineup in the sport. Going by OPS, Mookie Betts and Shohei Ohtani have combined to be the best top-two hitters in baseball (1.006). The three hitters rounding out the bottom of the order have been the second-worst group in the sport (.554), a gulf far wider than the Ohio River they played in front of Saturday. It is a problem that has continued to circle back and haunt this club through the first third of the season, particularly during wretched stretches like these.

So Chris Taylor earned consecutive starts for the first time in more than a month. He has, statistically, been the worst hitter not named José Abreu or Martín Maldonado to log at least 75 plate appearances in the majors this season by OPS (.352), but was coming off a nice game. The night before, he’d doubled into the gap to drive home a pair. It was his first extra-base hit this season.

Roberts liked what he saw. He also saw rookie Andy Pages drop his batting average from .300 to .238 over the past 10 days. The 23-year-old has just five hits in his past 34 at-bats. So Taylor started in center field. Pages sat. The impetus wasn’t that ambiguous.

“It was both,” Roberts said.

Then his offense once again fell flat. The Dodgers dropped their fourth consecutive game in a quiet 3-1 loss to the Cincinnati Reds, going swing for swing against a lineup that entered the day among the worst in baseball and ending the night quietly at Great American Ball Park.

The Dodgers have been sputtering longer than that offensively, averaging fewer than four runs per game over the past two weeks, with Max Muncy’s injury only widening the disparity from the club’s MVP-filled top of the order.

“It’s a collective effort,” Roberts said after another quiet evening. “It’s not just the top that’s got to go up there and do their thing. It’s the middle. It’s the bottom of the order. It’s everyone. Not trying to play for one big hit, but we haven’t got that hit.”

Saturday, the top five spots in the batting order combined to go 5-for-20. The last four? Hitless in 10 at-bats, reaching just once on a Gavin Lux walk.

With it have come the Dodgers’ woes with runners in scoring position, where the Dodgers had hit just .194 while going 4-5 as a club in the 10 days before Saturday’s loss.

​​”It’s more of the way we’re swinging the bats. One part of it is creating those situations,” Roberts said. “The other part is finishing those innings. I think it is more of just how we’re going, versus we’re just not good with runners in scoring position. Right now, offensively, we’re just not swinging the bats the way that we’re going to.”

Their lone run even came in maddening fashion, with the middle of the order grinding Reds starter Hunter Greene in the second inning with a pair of singles and a walk to load the bases with no one out. Jason Heyward earned a full-count 99 mph fastball over the plate — and smoked it on the ground for a run-scoring double play.

The Dodgers would get no closer, despite efforts from the top third of the order. Freddie Freeman laced an elevated Greene fastball for a leadoff double in the fourth, and never advanced from there. Shohei Ohtani kept a hard-hit grounder just fair for a one-out triple in Greene’s final inning. He, too, never advanced as Greene ran his pitch count up to 107 but got through six innings relatively unscathed.

“That,” Roberts said, “was sort of the story of the game.”

Memorial Day is around the corner, and the Dodgers have once again assumed their usual post atop the NL West. And yet, the second-most expensive group in the game has mustered Major League Baseball’s fifth-best record. Some problem signs have emerged, including an offense that has been prone to spurts of dormancy as much as dominance.

“That’s what a sheet of paper says,” Betts said. “That’s not how the game goes. The game has to be played. … The sheet of paper will say, yeah, we’re talented, this, that and the other. But the game is gonna determine. They’re playing better baseball.”

Production will have to come from every corner of the well-compensated roster. Enough time has passed to wonder whether some of these options at the bottom of the order will sort themselves out or whether this is who they are.

Taylor, an All-Star three years ago who has searched for his form ever since, has sunk to career lows. Last year’s ascendant rookie, James Outman, is back in Oklahoma City. This year’s ascendant rookie, Pages, is officially in a rut. Lux has shown signs of life as of late but still entered Saturday batting sixth with a .556 OPS. Jason Heyward has appeared in just 10 games this season. Kiké Hernández has been better against lefties, but even that only qualifies as a .704 OPS against them entering the day.

Given what they’ve gotten out of Betts and Ohtani thus far, the difference between the two poles is stark.

“You’re talking about three or four hitters that have got to show some production, some life,” Roberts said. “But it’s everyone. I just don’t want to pin it on those guys down there. But we’re trying to find somebody that’s gonna spark us.”

That spark hasn’t lit yet.