Dave Roberts: Dodgers ‘Have To Play Better’

The Los Angeles Dodgers’ losing streak tied their season-high at four games on Monday with a 9-1 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers.

The poor performance came on the heels of the Dodgers being swept by the Houston Astros over the weekend. L.A. was outscored 29-6 in the three-game series and looked outmatched at times.

The Dodgers’ recent woes coincide with several key players being unavailable due to injury. Max Muncy and Enrique Hernández were placed on the 10-day injured list in the last week, and Tommy Edman and Teoscar Hernández are both dealing with their own ailments as well.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts does not want to make up any excuses for the team’s struggles and said they simply have to get back on track, via Bill Plunkett of the Southern California News Group:

“Shoot, I don’t think there’s a team in baseball that’s at full strength,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “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.”

In addition to the aforementioned injuries, Mookie Betts has struggled for the better part of the 2025 season. The eight-time All-Star believes the Dodgers have to weather the storm until their key players return from injury:

“We haven’t hit very good. That’s pretty much it. We were just playing well, and it’s just a part of the season. It’s just not going to be perfect every day,” Betts said.

“You can’t replace All-Stars (like Muncy and Teoscar Hernandez). You can’t replace guys that have won MVP in postseason (Edman). You can’t replace those type of things. The next man has to step up and do what he can do. But I mean, you can’t replace those guys. You can only just have someone come step up and do their best.”

As Roberts and Betts noted, the Dodgers have to find a way to push through the adversity while keeping sight of their goals, much like they did during the 2024 season.

L.A. is still in a good spot as they own the best record in the National League and had won nine of their last 10 games before running into a hot Astros team.

The Dodgers can still finish the first half of the season on a strong note but will need to turn things around quickly with five games remaining against the Brewers and San Francisco Giants before the All-Star break.

Dave Roberts: Astros ‘outplayed’ Dodgers

Roberts gave credit to the Astros for outperforming them in all facets of the game over the weekend.

“I think you certainly have to give credit to their staff,” Roberts said. “The way they pitched us, I thought they did a really nice job. Really just kept us at bay for three games.

“I think as far as the at-bats, I don’t think we really took good at-bats collectively. But again, I think you’ve got to give those guys credit for how they pitched us. So it’s one of those things that, as we said the other night, you’ve got to wash it.

“I think this series, we just got to kind of pick up the pieces where we’re at. Some guys, certainly today that were unavailable, and hope that they can kind of feel better once we get to Milwaukee and kind of see where we’re at.”