Who are three Dodger stars who need to heat up at

The Dodgers are main the majors in on-base-plus-slugging share as an offense this yr. They are second in the National League in scoring, and third in staff batting average.

They have the league’s high gamers in hitting (Will Smith batting .324 and Freddie Freeman batting .306) and OPS (Shohei Ohtani at .982 and Smith at .963).

They determine to have a number of gamers who will get MVP votes at the tip of the season, including the odds-on favourite for the award in Ohtani.

And yet, as the membership enters the stretch run of the season, their lineup may be the most important query mark in their bid to defend final yr’s World Series championship. Since the beginning of July, they’ve scored the third-fewest runs in the majors, have the second-lowest staff batting average and the fourth-lowest OPS.

They stayed comparatively quiet at the commerce deadline, hopeful a quantity of struggling superstars would get issues going over the marketing campaign’s remaining two months. But to this level, only Freeman (who endured a two-month stoop before heating up again on their latest nine-game journey) has proven tangible indicators of a late-season revival.

“If you look at it from the offensive side, as far as our guys, they’ll be the first to tell you they’ve got to perform better and more consistently,” supervisor Dave Roberts mentioned this previous weekend, after utility outfielder Alex Call turned the staff’s only deadline addition to the lineup. “That’s something that we’re all counting on … Now it’s up to all of us to go out there and do our jobs.”

While that’s true of most hitters in the lineup, all the way in which down to Andy Pages and (even before his most up-to-date ankle damage flare-up) Tommy Edman, there are three star-level gamers in specific the Dodgers have been ready to spherical back into kind.

Here’s a look at the issues plaguing each of them:

Mookie Betts

First 15 video games: .304 average, .554 slugging share, .954 OPS

Last 87 video games: .222 average, .327 slugging share, .616 OPS

When requested on Sunday for the umpteenth time this season if he knew what was improper with Mookie Betts’ swing, Roberts failed to come up with an reply.

“Honestly, no,” Roberts mentioned. “I know that he and the hitting coaches have been working diligently, consistently, intentionally. I think that the first thing, the easiest thing, to say is it’s a mechanical thing. So I guess kind of that’s where he’s at. But also, I do believe that there’s a mental part of it, too, which is sort of beating him down a little bit.”

When Betts was introduced with the identical query later Sunday afternoon, after operating a season-long hitless streak to 17 at-bats and watching his batting average dip to .233, he was left looking for divine intervention.

“I’ve done everything I can possibly do,” he mentioned. “It’s up to God at this point.”

Betts’ struggles are not for a lack of effort. He spends hours in the batting cage before (and typically after) virtually every sport. He has tried mechanical tweaks and mental cues and basic drills that in the previous would get him back on observe.

His strategy has largely remained sound, as he ranks in the highest 20% of big-leaguers in chase price, whiff price and strikeouts share, per Baseball Savant’s Statcast knowledge.

And while his bat pace is in the eleventh percentile of MLB hitters (and down virtually two mph from his 39-homer season in 2023), it’s also about the identical as he had final yr, when he was still a .289 hitter with 19 home runs (in just 116 video games) and a .863 OPS (which only trailed Shohei Ohtani for the best on the staff).

“I really don’t know what else to do,” he mentioned. “I don’t have any answers.”

Perhaps probably the most confounding metric: Betts is in the 99th percentile in “squared-up” price, a metric that successfully determines when a ball is hit off the candy spot of the bat.

But, even when Betts does make strong contact, he merely isn’t producing as a lot energy as he normally does — rating among the underside third of big-league hitters in average exit velocity and hard-hit share; and watching fly balls that used to depart the yard die at the warning observe, if they even make it that far.

While he has been a sufferer of some unhealthy luck (his anticipated .252 batting average is sort of 20 factors larger than his precise mark), he has had no selection but to “go back to the drawing board” time and time again this yr — step by step grating on his confidence as solutions frequently fail to seem.

“I don’t know anybody in the world that would have confidence in the stretch that’s going on [for me],” he mentioned. “It sucks when you don’t get stuff done.”

Betts might be a streaky hitter. And the Dodgers’ hope is that, at some level over these remaining two months, he’ll discover one thing that unlocks more pop in his bat, and go on the sort of heater that could make him an efficient producer at the highest of the lineup again.

Until that occurs, however, questions will persist. About whether or not his shortstop play is to blame for his offensive decline (a principle a number of rival evaluators have more and more pointed to of late as a motive for his struggles). About whether or not age is solely catching up to the soon-to-be 33-year-old veteran. And about whether or not he’ll ever be the identical hitter he was once, amid a season-long stoop virtually no one noticed coming.

Shohei Ohtani

First 70 video games (before resuming pitching): .297 average, 1.034 OPS, 24% strikeout price

Last 40 video games (since resuming pitching): .230 average, .886 OPS, 31% strikeout price

The straightforward demarcation line for Ohtani this yr has been before and after he returned to pitching in mid-June, with offensive manufacturing dropping even as his stuff has ticked up on the mound.

Ohtani has still been a comparatively productive hitter since then, persevering with to hit home runs at a league-leading tempo (he’s tied with Kyle Schwarber for the NL lead with 38 on the yr).

But he has turn into a a lot simpler out the final couple months, as nicely, epitomized first and foremost by his climbing strikeout price.

An over-aggressive strategy would determine to be the straightforward rationalization right here. And there have been occasions, Roberts famous, the slugger seems to get into a “swing mode” that prevents him from shedding unhealthy pitches.

But on the entire this season, Ohtani is definitely swinging much less usually than he did final yr, chasing pitches at an virtually an identical price and persevering with to draw more walks than virtually anybody in the majors (his 71 free passes are seventh-most this season).

Ohtani’s drawback has been an increase in swing-and-miss, with the reigning MVP coming up empty on more than one-third of his hacks.

It would possibly merely be a byproduct of the added bodily workload he has taken on since resuming two-way duties. But he has insisted such issues stay fixable, citing a lack of steadiness and consistency in his swing mechanics.

Like Betts, Ohtani can also be inclined to more excessive highs and lows over the course of a yr. Last season, for instance, he hit just .235 with an .886 OPS in August, before turning around in September and batting .393 with a 1.225 OPS.

The Dodgers might use one other late-season tear like that again this time period. Whether he can do it while also ramping up as a pitcher looms as one of the most important questions going through the Dodgers down the stretch this yr.

Teoscar Hernández

First 33 video games (pre-groin pressure): .315 average, 9 home runs, .933 OPS, 18% strikeout price

Last 57 video games (post-groin pressure): .211 average, seven home runs, .619 OPS, 28% strikeout price

Hernández’s midseason drop-off is maybe the best to clarify of any lately scuffling Dodgers hitter.

Before struggling a groin/adductor pressure in early May, he was on an All-Star (and probably even MVP-caliber) tempo after re-signing with the Dodgers in the offseason.

Since then, however, the 32-year-old merely hasn’t appeared the identical — both at the plate, where he hasn’t been in a position to drive the ball as he normally does, and in the sphere, where his vary has been clearly restricted.

To that finish, a foul ball he took off his foot final month hasn’t helped issues either.

There have been some latest indicators that Hernández is getting healthy again. His slugging share has began to tick back up since getting a week off for the All-Star break. He has had more onerous contact, particularly to heart and the alternative discipline.

“At the beginning [after my injury] it was a little hard,” Hernández mentioned after hitting home runs in consecutive video games at Fenway Park final week. “First I got my groin, then I got the foul off my foot. Couldn’t put a lot of weight [on it] for like two weeks. Thank God there was the break in there. I got those four days off, going through that and getting some treatment, getting some rest. And finally feel like myself again.”

But, it still hasn’t resulted in a complete reversal of fortunes, with Hernández ending the highway journey going just five-for-25 with 9 strikeouts and only one extra-base hit.

Last yr, Hernández’s means to be a run-producer behind the Dodgers’ star trio of hitters was essential to both their regular-season and postseason offensive success. Lately, though, he has been more strikeout-prone and much less opportunistic at the plate, contributing to a string of irritating latest defeats marked by squandered possibilities in leverage alternatives.

“He’s bearing down, and he’s not trying to give at-bats away,” Roberts mentioned. “He’s grinding.”

Much just like the Dodgers’ different scuffling stars, the staff will need him to absolutely snap out of it, and dwell up once again to the expectations the membership had for him and the lineup at massive.