ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Shohei Ohtani’s latest home run binge hasn’t been enough to spark the Los Angeles Dodgers out of a summer malaise that’s endangering their customary perch atop the NL West.
Ohtani homered in his third straight game Monday night, hitting his 42nd of the season in the eighth inning of the Dodgers’ 7-4 loss to the Los Angeles Angels.
The Dodgers trailed 7-0 when Ohtani connected off Shaun Anderson with one out, driving his fourth homer in five games into the right field bleachers to tie Philadelphia’s Kyle Schwarber for the NL lead. Seattle’s Cal Raleigh leads the majors with 45 homers.
Ohtani also started a rally: Mookie Betts and Will Smith then singled before Max Muncy brought them home with his 17th homer, trimming the Dodgers’ deficit to three runs and inspiring thunderous roars from the Dodgers fans comprising more than half of the Angel Stadium crowd.
But the Dodgers got no closer, with Connor Brogdon and longtime Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen calmly wrapping up the sub-.500 Angels’ fifth consecutive win over their crosstown rivals.
The loss shrunk the Dodgers’ lead over San Diego in the NL West to just one game — the smallest cushion since June 14.
“I mean, it’s a really bad loss for us,” Muncy said. “There’s not really any way of getting around that.”
Ohtani has a 10-game hitting streak in August, his longest of the season, and he has four homers among his nine hits in the Dodgers’ last five games. The two-way superstar is the presumptive front-runner for his fourth MVP award.
Despite his heroics, the Dodgers are 10-12 since the All-Star break.
With meager production across their lineup and inconsistent relief pitching just when their problematic rotation finally started to click, they’ve only rarely looked like the juggernaut franchise that has won two of the past five World Series, four of the last eight NL pennants and 11 of the last 12 division crowns.
“It’s not going well for us right now,” Muncy said. “We’ve got to find a way to snap out of it. No one is going to feel sorry for us. It’s on us to find our way out of it, and we will.”
A day after the Dodgers’ bullpen blew an eighth-inning lead in a 5-4 loss to Toronto, top starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto got raked by the Angels’ largely average lineup for six runs on six hits and five walks, creating a hole the Dodgers couldn’t escape. The Dodgers began the weekend with two solid performances against the AL-leading Blue Jays, only to fall back into another rut.
“We’re all looking for some traction here, and trying to stack some wins,” manager Dave Roberts said. “Hate to say that yesterday’s loss carried over to tonight. … You win yesterday, and you feel even better about coming into today, but now you look at losing two games in a row. It’s baseball, and we’re good at resetting, coming back.”
Their loss in Anaheim ended a few minutes after the streaking Padres beat San Francisco to move one game back of the defending champions.
Muncy said he doesn’t watch the standings, but most Dodgers are aware of their biggest rivals breathing down their necks.
“There definitely has to be some urgency,” Roberts said. “I don’t think anyone is blind to the fact that the standings are the standings, and so it’s got a lot more interesting. We’ve got to go out there and play good baseball, but I definitely feel our guys are starting to feel that urgency. It’s been long enough of middling baseball, as far as overall team wins and losses.”
The rivalry is about to hit a fever pitch, too: The Padres and Dodgers are meeting in three-game series on each of the next two weekends.
Dodgers fans are well aware that San Diego made a frenzied flurry of moves at the trade deadline, acquiring seven major leaguers while addressing every perceived need on their roster.
The Dodgers did almost nothing, making only secondary additions to their bullpen instead of acquiring a difference-making position player or another starting pitcher.
Ohtani played his first six major league seasons in Anaheim, winning two MVP awards and a Rookie of the Year award while never playing on a winning team.
He is scheduled to pitch at Angel Stadium on Wednesday night for the first time since he left for a $700 million contract with the Dodgers and promptly won the World Series.
Ohtani’s homer was the 100th of his career at the Big A, making him just the sixth major leaguer to hit that mark.
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