Dave Roberts Calls Out Dodgers Amid Embarrassing Losing Streak

The Dodgers are 56-36, the best record in the National League, entering Tuesday's game against the Milwaukee Brewers. Only the Detroit Tigers (58-34) have a better record in either league.

The Dodgers' injured list — 14 players deep — provides plenty of excuses for any stretch of poor play. Yet amid a four-game losing streak, manager Dave Roberts isn't buying any of them.

“Shoot, I don’t think there’s a team in baseball that’s at full strength,” Roberts told reporters Monday, including Bill Plunkett of the Southern California News Group. “I just feel that with the guys we have, we just have to play better. We’ve got to pitch better, we’ve got to defend better, we’ve got to take more competitive at-bats. And we’re just not doing any of those things right now.

“Yeah, you look back four or five days ago, things were more positive. But, this is a time for us to kind of look at ourselves and be better.”

The Dodgers have been outscored 38-7 during the losing streak. Most of the damage was done by the Houston Astros in their 18-1 blowout win last Friday at Dodger Stadium.

During the four-game losing streak, there have been plenty of bad performances to go around on the hitting side.

Shohei Ohtani is 3 for 17. Freddie Freeman is 3 for 14 with six strikeouts. Michael Conforto is 2 for 12, exacerbating his season-long struggles. Hyeseong Kim and Miguel Rojas, pressed into full-time duty amid injuries to Max Muncy and Kiké Hernández, are a combined 3 for 23. Those five players have two extra-base hits among them during the four-game skid.

While some of those performances are a measure of bad luck, some hitters are clearly pressing. Ohtani, Kim and Mookie Betts are all swinging at pitches out of the strike zone at a higher rate than they have for the season. Freeman, who's swung on 51.5 percent of pitches during his 16-year career, is swinging at 60.8 percent during the losing streak.

The bigger problem for the Dodgers, arguably, is one that's plagued them all season. During the four-game losing streak, no pitcher has thrown more than Emmet Sheehan's five innings. Justin Wrobleski overcame an awful third inning Saturday to give the Dodgers 4.2 innings in relief of Ohtani, the opener. Yoshinobu Yamamoto didn't make it out of the first inning Monday.

When Dustin May pitched into the eighth inning of the Dodgers' win over the Chicago White Sox last Thursday, he became the first Dodgers pitcher to do so all season. Only three teams — the Brewers, Miami Marlins, and Colorado Rockies — have gotten fewer seven-inning starts from their pitchers this season than the Dodgers.

It isn't hard to see why Roberts believes there's some work to do.