LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers lost 6-2 to the Giants on Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium, a defeat that pushed their losing streak to four games and left them unable to win the four-game series this week. The best they can do now is split it.
The loss also left the Dodgers at 24-18, still behind the Padres at 24-17, and made one thing plain: this is not just a bad week, but a stretch in which nothing has come easy. The Dodgers have lost each of their last four games by four runs or more, a run tied for the franchise’s longest such streak in a single season in the modern era since 1901, and one the club had not seen since 1936, when the team was in Brooklyn.
Tuesday had a brief moment that looked like it might change the shape of the night. The Dodgers loaded the bases in the first inning with one out, and Will Smith drove in the only run of the frame with a sacrifice fly. That was as close as they came to building something lasting. Jung Hoo Lee then made an over-the-shoulder catch in right field and crashed into the wall to take away what could have been a multi-run hit from Smith, a play Dave Roberts later called “a really game-changing play.”
Roberts said the Giants seem to rise up against Los Angeles, even after a season that has not gone the way San Francisco hoped. “I think that we bring out the best in every team,” he said. “... They haven’t had a good season thus far, but against us you can see the emotion that they’re playing with.” He added, “We have to find a way to match that intensity. We do.”
That was the gap on Tuesday. Roberts said, “In total, you know, when you don’t get a whole lot of opportunities and you don’t cash in on the couple that you do get, you don’t score a lot of runs.” The Dodgers did not cash in often enough, and the offense again went quiet in the middle of a losing stretch that has exposed how quickly a lineup can flatten when the hits stop bunching together.
That randomness is part of what Andrew Friedman said he has come to understand more clearly after last year’s World Series title. He said he had told his wife, “I should have already gotten it before, but now I really get it,” and later added, “She was right.” On Tuesday, he said, “What we know for a fact is every guy is going to have ups and downs,” calling the current slide “some of the randomness of baseball.” He said those slumps can arrive together and create “some real offensive lulls,” adding, “And I feel like that’s more random than anything.”
The Dodgers did show signs of life earlier this month, when they beat the Astros 8-3 and their home run swing briefly returned. Shohei Ohtani was not part of that resurgence, and the club has not found a way to make that surge carry over into this series or this losing streak. Instead, the standings have tightened, the margin over San Diego has vanished, and a team that won the World Series last year is now trying to stop a short skid from becoming something heavier.
For now, the question is not whether the Dodgers can still chase down the division. It is whether they can play one clean game before the pressure around their Dodger standings gets any louder.
