The Dodgers entered Saturday night’s game against the Pittsburgh Pirates on a three-game losing streak with hits and runs increasingly difficult to muster.
Home runs, however, are a different matter, especially when they come from batters named Hernández.
Advertisement
A blast by Teoscar Hernández to begin the eighth inning that put the Dodgers ahead and a pinch-hit, three-run shot by Kiké Hernández later in the inning were the difference in an 8-4 victory at a sold-out Dodger Stadium.
How bad had it become? Even after Saturday’s barrage, the Dodgers are batting .233 — 20th in baseball — with a subpar .312 on-base percentage. Yet they rank fifth with a .431 slugging percentage because they lead baseball with 43 home runs.
Teoscar Hernández, whose home run was his seventh this season and 199th of his career, said he doesn’t think about hitting the ball out of the park.
“Just narrowing the strike zone, trying to get a good pitch, a better pitch, [make] that strike zone little so we cannot make mistakes swinging out of the strike zone,” he said. “I don’t think anybody is going up there looking to hit a homer. If you put a good swing on it, the ball’s going to go.”
Advertisement
Most years a healthy portion of the long balls would be courtesy of Max Muncy. But the malady afflicting much of the Dodgers lineup seems to have infected the third baseman with a particularly virulent strain. If antibiotics were the cure, he’d be taking a handful. Rest isn’t really what he’d prefer.
Read more: Pirates’ Tommy Pham suspended, fined for making crude hand-jerking gesture at Angel fans
How bad is it for a slugger who hit 35 or more home runs in four of his previous seven Dodgers seasons?
Another Max Muncy, a promising rookie infielder with the Athletics from Thousand Oaks High, was sent back to triple A a few days ago after batting .176 with one home run in 68 at-bats. That’s better than the Dodgers’ Muncy, who has zero homers and four runs batted in while batting .167 over 78 at-bats. His characteristically low batting average — career mark: .226 — normally is palatable because he walks a ton, Muncy sporting a .350 career on-base percentage. But this season, seemingly emboldened by his power outage, pitchers have walked him only 12 times in 25 games.
Advertisement
“You know what’s interesting is there are some balls barreled that aren’t going out, but also there’s still a lot of swing and miss,” manager Dave Roberts said. “So it just, it’s all sort of, right now,…