Gonzalez Puts Dodgers’ Scoring Drought Into Optimistic Perspective
Suffice to say, being shut out in three consecutive games hurts. When you’re the Los Angeles Dodgers, however, and you’ve just been swept and shut out three consecutive games against your archival, the San Francisco Giants, the feeling is exponentially worse.
This has made the last few games a tough pill to swallow for Dodger fans, but first baseman and team leader Adrian Gonzalez has been around long enough to know how to put bad streaks in a 162-game season into perspective.
After Thursday’s 4-0 loss to the Giants at AT&T Park, Gonzalez had a simple response to the Dodgers’ latest struggles, via Dylan Hernandez of the LA Times:
When we wake up tomorrow, we’re still in first place,” the All-Star first baseman said.
Much like early on last season, the Dodgers have struggled against the Giants in San Francisco. They are 0-6 at AT&T Park this season, which has been primarily due to their lackluster offense against the Giants. Gonzalez touched on some of what plagued the Dodgers in their latest sweep:
We just didn’t get the ball to drop when there were runners in scoring position,” he said.
The Dodgers were 0-for-7 Thursday with runners in scoring position and haven’t scored a run in 31 innings heading into Friday’s game. They went 0-for-17 in such situations during the series, and are 1-for-32 at AT&T Park with runners in scoring position this season.
Fortunately for the Dodgers, they won’t return to San Francisco until the last week of September. By then, they hope, that just like last season, they will be in first place with a comfortable lead.
To add to Gonzalez’s point, considering the Dodgers are in first place despite going stretches without Carl Crawford, Kenley Jansen and Yasiel Puig, among others. They’ve also been without Brandon McCarthy, who was lost for the season in late April, and now will continue forward without Hyun-Jin Ryu, who underwent season-ending surgery on his left shoulder Thursday.
[divide]Adrian Gonzalez On Approach To Hitting
Pure and simple the Dodgers play at AT&T like its Dodger Stadium. In the last game of the series the Giants and Dodgers both had 9 hits. The difference the Giants scored 4 runs. Giants know how to move base runners and take advantage of the big space in the outfield and direction of the wind. The Dodgers continue to squander opportunities with big swings and no attempt to move runners with situational hitting. The Dodgers are ranked 1st in Power Ranking but are unable to score at AT&T Park. It’s time Mattingly should incorporate small ball tactics moving runners in scoring position and single in runs with contact swings line-drive in the gaps.