Dodgers Fall 4-2 to Diamondbacks, Averaging 3.2 Runs Over Last Nine Games

The Dodgers' brief rebound didn't last long. One day after snapping a season-worst seven-game losing streak with a 2-1 win in 10 innings, Los Angeles dropped a 4-2 decision to the Diamondbacks in Phoenix on Sunday, according to the New York Post.

Arizona starter Eduardo Rodriguez shut the two-time defending World Series champions down, limiting them to two runs and five hits over seven innings. The Dodgers finished with six hits total for the game.

The series in Arizona summed up a broader slump. Los Angeles scored just seven runs across three games there. The team is averaging five runs per game on the season, but that number has dropped to 3.2 runs per game over its last nine contests, per the Post.

Manager Dave Roberts didn't sugarcoat the diagnosis. "I think this series it was very clear that we weren't hitting the fastball, and we were exposing ourselves to the changeup with the secondary specifically," he said.

Starter Justin Wrobleski dug an early hole, putting the Dodgers down 4-0 after two innings. The bullpen held the line from there, keeping Los Angeles within striking distance. But the offense couldn't cash in. Down two runs in the eighth, Andy Pages led off with a single, and Freddie Freeman followed by grounding into a double play.

That double play was not an isolated incident. The Dodgers have grounded into 99 double plays this season, the most in Major League Baseball, according to the Post.

Freeman, for his part, shrugged off the stretch. "It's baseball, ups and downs," he said. "We're just going through it. No one's worried here."

Roberts struck a similar note publicly, insisting there's no alarm bell going off in the clubhouse. "We've still got a really good ballclub," he said. "There's certainly [no] panic."

But Roberts has also made clear that patience has limits. After Saturday's extra-innings win, he demanded more from his hitters, framing the team's recent stretch of close games as unsustainable. "I think it's hard to win when your margin for winning is a razor's edge," he said. "It's not like guys aren't trying, but it's a tough way to pitch when you have to be perfect. We're just better than this. As we always say, it's not a try league. We gotta get it done."

The bigger problem for Los Angeles is that its pitching has been good enough to win, and the offense still isn't backing it up. Roberts pointed directly at a lack of in-game adjustments as the core issue, not talent or effort. "Are the Royals going to exploit the fastball that we're not hitting and the changeup below?" he said. "I don't know. But we have to make adjustments. I think, for me, that's sort of what I see as a group, we're just not making adjustments."

The Dodgers are set to host the Kansas City Royals for a two-game set, with two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell scheduled to start for Los Angeles during the series.

On paper, that's a strong pitching option for the Dodgers to lean on. But as Roberts pointed out, elite starting pitching only wins games if the lineup behind it can produce runs. If the same swing-and-miss issues against fastballs and secondary pitches persist against Kansas City's staff, LA's rotation advantage won't matter.

The unresolved question heading into that series is whether this is a short slump or a deeper mechanical issue that opposing pitching staffs around the league have started to identify and exploit. Roberts' own comments suggest he's leaning toward the latter, at least for now, given how specifically he's called out the team's struggles against fastballs and changeups over multiple recent series.