Shohei Ohtani: Dodgers Putting ‘Too Much Pressure On Ourselves’

The struggles continued for the Los Angeles Dodgers as they lost their fourth consecutive game on Friday with another quiet offensive night.

The Dodgers scored just one run against the Baltimore Orioles in a 2-1 walk-off loss, and it came one night after they managed just three, all in the final inning, against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The day before that, they were shutout, and in their last seven matchups, Dodgers have averaged just 2.4 runs per game.

While a seven-day sample size wouldn’t be concerning on most occasions, it’s a highlight of much larger struggles for the Dodgers’ offense, which has been one of the worst in baseball for an extended stretch.

Shohei Ohtani believes the Dodgers’ struggles are due to pressing and adding too much pressure on themselves, he said on SportsNet LA:

“We as individuals are trying to find ways on our own to make sure we’re hitting better than we are. I think a side effect of that is we’re a little too eager and putting too much pressure on ourselves. In a sense, that’s really hurting us more than helping us.”

Since July 1, the Dodgers’ offense is hitting just .235./.314/.397, and they’ve only scored 233 runs in 55 games, which places them 27th of 30 teams in MLB.

They rank 26th in batting average, 16th in on-base percentage, 21st in slugging, 20th in wRC+, 21st in on-base plus slugging, and have the sixth-worst strikeout rate in MLB.

In that stretch, the Dodgers only have four hitters who have produced above league-average offensive value by wRC+ with at least 100 plate appearances: Shohei Ohtani, Will Smith, Freddie Freeman and Miguel Rojas.

Mookie Betts, Andy Pages, Michael Conforto and Teoscar Hernández have all received significant plate appearances while producing below-average offense.

The Dodgers have also given a lot of playing time to Alex Freeland, Tommy Edman, Dalton Rushing, Hyeseong Kim and Enrique Hernández, who have all produced poor offensive numbers in that stretch as well. Though, Edman has been out since Aug. 4 and Kim also spent an extended stretch on the injured list.

L.A. began the season as one of the top offenses in baseball, so the talent has been there before, but they’ve been unable to replicate that.

Dodgers lineup struggles result in poor record

Following play on July 1, the Dodgers were 54-32 with an eight-game lead in the National League West. Since then, the Dodgers have gone 24-31 to put themselves in position to play in the Wild Card Series while also fighting for the division title.

In addition, the Dodgers are just 6-13 against teams under .500 since July 28.