Dodgers Team News

Dodgers: LA Shows Some Small Ball in Recent Win Over the Reds

The start of Saturday’s game was looking all too familiar. Sonny Gray had retired the first 11 Dodgers he faced before surrounding a hit to Trea Turner. Still, it took a little longer before any action would really take place in the game. it wasn’t until the 5th inning, thanks in part to two errors, that the Dodgers were able to scrape together 3 runs off of Gray. 

With Max Scherzer on the mound opposite of him, that would have been all the Dodgers needed to seal the win but you can never score too many runs. With two runners on in the 6th inning, Chris Taylor stepped up to the plate and laid down a squeeze bunt to bring in the speedy Turner. It extended the Dodgers’ lead to 4 and took even more pressure off of Max and the pitching staff. 



The other one was a safety squeeze to just add an insurance run. I know that Chris Taylor handles the bat. I liked the runner at third base in Trea, so he executed it and just allowed us to tack on.

Austin Barnes also provided the Dodgers with a run prior on a swing bunt that almost acted as another squeeze. Either way, those two plays were acts you don’t see from the team. We’re used to seeing them drive balls over the fence or into the gaps to score their runs and not play small ball at all. 

Dodgers Related: Scherzer Extends His Dominant Streak With LA

However, despite what this team is capable of with the bats when they do decide to hit, they should incorporate more small ball into their offensive game plan. We’ve seen all too often that the offense can go cold as quick as they can put up runs. We saw that on Friday as the lineup could only produce 6 hits and one measly run that came in the 9th inning of an eventual 3-1 loss to the Reds. It’s so much flashier to pimp a home run or leg out an extra-base hit, but against the best of the best come October, you have to find any way to score runs. 

Bring back small ball to LA!

Dodgers: Trea Turner Thinks This is Max Scherzer’s Most Dominant Stretch Ever

 

8 Comments

  1. Good comments at the end of the article. The Dodger offense disappears more times than last year. Bellinger is a non-factor. Betts has been cold most of the year then Pollack gets hurt. Seager still has not shown what he has like last year. We have guys that are as fast or faster than anyone in the league. It’s surprising to me that Dave Roberts, whose entire career was based on the running game, has not incorporated it into the Dodgers. Maybe he’s waiting for the playoffs, I don’t know but with T. Turner, Lux and Betts, that the Dodgers don’t play small ball more than they do is surprising.

  2. Simple baseball…..It was done perfectly…. Good job DRRRRRRRR’s …….Put’s the pressure on the defense and psychologically on the other team. Maybe the Dodgers learned something from the Vagiants, they seem to do it every game…..

  3. Alas, they likely got chewed out in the locker room by Roberts because they weren’t hitting home runs….

  4. Great to see instead of Taylor striking out with a runner on 3rd with less than 2 outs. Would like to see more of it.

  5. It’s about time…going for Home Runs or bust has left us chasing a weaker Giants team that plays small ball when needed.

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