ST. LOUIS — It has been a slow week for the Dodgers’ offense.
Starting with soft-tossing left-hander Ryan Yarbrough on Sunday, the Dodgers have faced a series of starting pitchers equipped with offspeed arsenals rather than high-octane fastballs. The latest, veteran right-hander Sonny Gray, took a shutout into the seventh inning as the Dodgers lost, 5-0, to the St. Louis Cardinals in a game that was delayed 77 minutes at the start by rain.
The Dodgers have been held to 17 runs over the past six games while facing starting pitchers Yarbrough, Paul Blackburn, Tylor Megill, Griffin Canning, David Peterson and Gray. Only Megill and Canning reached the major-league average for fastball velocity this season (93.8 mph) – Canning relied more on his slider and changeup than his fastball and Megill threw his slider and curveball more than his fastball.
It has been a steady diet of sliders and sweepers, curveballs and changeups and the Dodgers have scored just eight runs on 29 hits over 36⅓ innings against that six-pack of pitchers – and they have lost four of the six games.
Gray’s fastball touched 94 mph three times, all during a fifth-inning at-bat against Mookie Betts – he popped out. His six-pitch mix – four-seam fastball, sinking two-seamer, slider, cutter, curveball, changeup – generated 16 swings-and-misses among his 90 pitches in 6⅓ innings.
The Dodgers came into the game leading the majors with a .313 average with runners in scoring position but they went 1 for 10 in those situations against Gray and 1 for 13 in the game.
Betts doubled with one out in the first inning but was stranded there. Andy Pages and Michael Conforto singled in the second inning but were stranded at the corners. Shohei Ohtani and Betts led off the third with singles but never advanced. Teoscar Hernandez doubled with out in the sixth and went to third on Pages’ infield single in the sixth. They were stranded.
Dodgers spot starter Justin Wrobleski was less adept at wriggling away from dangerous situations.
He gave up a two-out, two-run home run to Pedro Pages in the second inning then walked two in the fifth to set up Brendan Donovan’s two-out, two-run single.
More to come on this story.
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