LOS ANGELES — Maybe all the subtractions are beginning to add up.
A lineup that lost Trea Turner, Justin Turner and Cody Bellinger over the winter also lost Gavin Lux for the season to a spring knee injury. Now, Will Smith will miss at least a week while dealing with concussion symptoms.
Too many of the remaining parts have been “consistently inconsistent” – to borrow a phrase from one of those sputtering parts, Mookie Betts – and produced just six runs in a three-game series against the Chicago Cubs this weekend, losing 3-2 on Sunday afternoon.
The Dodgers have now lost six of their past nine games, leaving them toggling between .500 or one game over for the past week.
In losing two of three to the Cubs, the Dodgers’ offense topped out at two runs per day and were within one two-out, pinch-hit single (David Peralta’s walk-off winner Saturday) of being swept at home. They batted .168 as a team (16 for 95) with 34 strikeouts in the three games.
The offensive woes flowed from the Smith-less top down.
Betts went 3 for 12 in the series, all three hits coming Sunday – a bloop double, a fly ball lost in the sun for a single and an infield single. Freddie Freeman was 2 for 12 and J.D. Martinez 1 for 11. Fresh off his four-homer series by the Bay, Max Muncy stayed hot with a single and another homer on Friday night. But he went hitless the rest of the weekend including a strikeout after the Dodgers pulled within a run and loaded the bases with two outs in the seventh Sunday.
While the Dodgers were struggling to solve Cubs lefty Drew Smyly, their starter Julio Urias had a two-hit shutout going through the first four innings Sunday, the Dodgers’ lack of offense causing his only stress. A solo home run by Chris Taylor – a drive projected to travel 408 feet if the left-field foul pole hadn’t intervened – was all the support Urias was given.
The fifth inning would have been more of the same from Urias but rookie second baseman Miguel Vargas bobbled Cody Bellinger’s ground ball. Bellinger stole second and went to third on Yan Gomes’ ground out – which could have ended the inning.
Instead, Bellinger scored the tying run when Luis Torrens dribbled a ball on the grass to the left of the pitcher’s mound. Urias raced over to field it and tried unsuccessfully to throw Torrens out while sliding on the grass.
Two more hits – one when Taylor’s throw to Vargas for a forceout was late – loaded the bases before Urias could finally end the inning.
Getting essentially five outs (and throwing 31 pitches in the process) seemed to take something out of Urias. With two outs in the sixth, he hung an 0-and-2 cutter to Patrick Wisdom and left a 1-and-0 fastball to Bellinger over the plate for back-to-back home runs that put the Cubs in the lead.
Bellinger’s home run proved to be the difference. It was the one-time MVP’s 80th career homer at Dodger Stadium – and the first ‘Belli bomb’ the home crowd found hard to stomach – and the first by a left-handed batter off Urias since Brandon Marsh took Urias deep last July 16.
