The Dodgers offense is in a funk

They've been one of the worst in baseball these last few weeks

The Dodgers have gone 8-5 over their last 13 games. They just had a four-game winning streak. How could there possibly be anything wrong?

Well, you can thank the pitching for those eight wins.

Over the last couple of weeks, something has been off with the Dodgers’ offense. It just feels like they haven’t been themselves. They’re scoring runs, but not at the rate we were seeing to begin the season.

Like I mentioned, they’ve won 8 of their last 13 games, so it’s easy to feel like everything is all good. I crunched the numbers, and even I was shocked by what I learned.

I had a feeling the offense had been a little sluggish the last couple of weeks but I didn’t realize just how bad they had been. Since May 8, the Dodgers have quietly been one of the worst offenses in all of baseball. Yup, despite Shohei Ohtani doing Shohei Ohtani things and Freddie Freeman heating up, they’ve been really bad.

Since May 8:

85 wRC+ (27th)

.284 wOBA (28th)

.215 AVG (28th)

.281 OBP (29th)

.646 OPS (26th)

23.7 K% (23rd)

Whoa! Wasn’t expecting to see a bottom three offense.

Seeing those numbers, it’s really remarkable that the team has managed to go 8-5. Well, you can thank their pitching for that. The pitching has been keeping them in games.

Over the last 13 games, the Dodgers offense has scored six or more runs only three times. It feels like when they do score a lot of runs, it’s just one big inning.

Monday, for example. They scored all six of their runs in one inning. The other seven innings they went scoreless. Now, I’ll take a six-run inning every day of the week, but the offense was non-existent for the rest of the game.

The lack of home runs has also cost the Dodgers. Since May 8, the team is tied for 14th in baseball in home runs. When this team is hitting homers, they are nearly impossible to beat.

Since May 8, the Dodgers are 4-0 when they hit at least two homers a game. They are 4-5 when they don’t hit at least two homers in a game. When they don’t hit a single homer, they’ve gone 1-5. That’s been the major problem. Guys just haven’t been hitting home runs these last two weeks.

During this run, here are notable wRC+’s from the team.

164 - Shohei Ohtani

140 - Freddie Freeman

130 - Mookie Betts

113 - Will Smith

72 - Teoscar Hernandez

71 - Gavin Lux

29 - Andy Pages

6 - James Outman

-55 - Max Muncy

First off, holy **** to the Max Muncy one. Yikes!

Despite the top four still hitting above average, they’re all down from their season average. So despite solid production, it hasn’t been what we’ve been accustomed to. Then when you get to the bottom half, every player has been struggling big time. The only player who has actually outproduced their season-long wRC+ is Lux, which isn’t saying much considering he’s still been pretty bad these last few weeks.

So, what does all of this mean?

Well it means pretty much nothing. This is just a two-week stretch where a lot of the team is searching for it at the plate. They’ll be fine. These things happen. Big picture, this is still an elite offense. Arguably the best in baseball.

I just wanted to write this article to let everyone know the offense is going through it in case you didn’t notice. This isn’t me hitting the panic button. As long as the bats show up in October, that’ll be all that matters. If we get this kind of production in October, well then I might be hitting the panic button.

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