Shohei Ohtani struck out four consecutive times against the St. Louis Cardinals on Wednesday night, the first time he’s done that all season, in a game the Los Angeles Dodgers led three separate times before losing anyway.
Final: Cardinals 8, Dodgers 6, in 10 innings at Dodger Stadium, capped by a two-strike Thomas Saggese infield single that Los Angeles simply didn’t have an answer for.
The Dodgers led 3-0. Then 5-2. Then 5-4, before St. Louis tied it in the eighth and won it in extras. The Dodgers blew three leads to a team with nothing to play for, and a club doesn’t do that by accident against a non-contender playing out September for pride. It’s exposed, and exposure in the first week of the month is a blueprint every likely playoff opponent gets to keep, not a box score to explain away.
Specific hitters authored the collapse. Joshua Báez, sent up to pinch-hit in the eighth, doubled off Tanner Scott to set up Alec Burleson’s game-tying sac fly, then doubled in two more runs later to make it 8-5. Saggese’s go-ahead single in the 10th had already scored the automatic runner to make it 6-5. Riley O’Brien closed it out. A utility player and a bench bat outplayed the middle of the Dodgers’ lineup on the night that mattered most.
Ohtani’s four straight strikeouts weren’t a one-night slump dressed up as drama. He walked once, struck out four times, and watched his average slide to .279 — including a strikeout in the 10th with the tying run standing at third. This is a September slump, not a bad night.
Dave Roberts didn’t dress it up either. Ohtani is “not close to optimal,” his manager said afterward, and his swing “wasn’t the swing that we’re used to seeing.” Roberts said he’s watched it for weeks: “I’ve seen it over the last couple weeks where he hasn’t been who he is.” The problem traces to the same knee that kept him out of the All-Star Game, still bothering him in September on top of a right biceps issue that’s kept him DH-only since July 3.
The injury doesn’t undercut this take. It deepens it. A cold streak fixes itself in a week. A knee and a biceps that haven’t settled in three weeks are a health problem heading into the only month that counts, and they stack on top of a lineup that already blew three leads to a team playing for nothing, not replace it.
Nobody’s ruling out the postseason here. The Dodgers’ division lead sits close to double digits, and that was never the question. The question is whether the roster built to peak right now is instead previewing the Dodgers’ lineup problems heading into October.
Freddie Freeman ended a 47-game homerless drought and drove in three. Mookie Betts went deep too, part of the same push that built the Dodgers’ early cushion:
https://twitter.com/MLB/status/2095361482619793886
None of it held. The Dodgers still lost, in extras, to a team with nothing on the line.
I’ve watched the Cardinals enough this year to know a win like this doesn’t happen against a team playing anywhere near its ceiling.
The Dodgers didn’t get unlucky Wednesday — they got exposed.
