With an opportunity to gain ground in the NL West, the Dodgers dropped two games to the Rockies over the weekend, keeping exact pace with the division-leading Giants.
In Sunday’s finale, Colorado was victorious, 5-0.
On the East Coast, the Giants lost two games to the NL East-leading Braves, who the Dodgers will face in a three-game set at Dodger Stadium beginning Monday.
Atlanta blanked San Francisco on Sunday, 9-0.
Once the dust settled on all the weekend games, the Dodgers trail the Giants by 2-1/2 games — right where they started Friday.
Inconsistent offense continues to plague the Dodgers. Heading into the weekend, the Rockies had a 15-47 road record, which was the worst in the majors. However, the Rockies found enough juice to steal the series, frustrating Los Angeles in a time when they could have made up divisional ground.
In Sunday’s affair, Antonio Senzatela took the hill for Colorado and was brilliant. The 26-year-old righty threw seven shutout innings, allowing just two hits and a walk on five strikeouts. Heading into the series, Senzatela had a plus-7.00 lifetime ERA against the Dodgers.
The Rockies did the brunt of their offensive damage against starter Mitch White in the first inning. After a Brendan Rogers single and a Charlie Blackmon double, C.J. Cron homered to left-center field, giving Colorado all the runs they would need on the day.
In the seventh, the Rockies scored two more on a Ron Rios sacrifice fly and a wild pitch by reliever Shane Greene, who has dealt with several waves of control issues since joining the Dodgers early last week.
The Dodgers managed just three hits in the finale. Trea Turner, Corey Seager and Cody Bellinger all collected singles. Max Muncy, AJ Pollock and Chris Taylor each drew a walk.
Counting White, the Dodgers used seven pitchers on Sunday, including Kenley Jansen in the eighth inning. Justin Turner pitched the ninth inning, indicating just how spent the Los Angeles bullpen is. Turner became the 38th pitcher used by the Dodgers this year, by far a franchise record.
In Friday’s 4-2 defeat, the Dodgers mustered just six hits and two walks. The offense woke up just a bit in Sunday’s win, scoring five runs on seven hits. Los Angeles scored just seven runs in the entire series, a number untypical for a team with some of the league’s most potent offensive potential.
Will Smith, who did not start on Sunday, has been one of the club’s hottest hitters. In the first two games, Smith went a combined 4-for-5 with two walks and a homer. His single to left in the eighth inning on Saturday proved to be the game-winning RBI.
As it stands, the Dodgers are lining up Julio Urias, Walker Buehler and Max Scherzer to throw against the Braves, respectively.
There are 31 games remaining on the Los Angeles schedule.
Think Blue Planning Committee 
Starting two guys in the line-up hitting around 170 doesn’t help the offense especially when you are playing Barnes who has struggled this year The bottom 3rd of your lineup is essentially an easy out. The Dodger’s success in recent years is built on pitching but it’s also been structured having an offense that grinds a pitcher driving up pitch counts and keeping up the stress with no easy outs. In this lineup today and recently, you can’t hide the cripples giving the pitcher an easy inning to take a rest. Not a good thing.
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McKinney can cover some ground and has a decent glove. But he does not even come close to hitting his weight. No way he deserves a roster spot over Beaty.
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That was a pathetic exhibition this weekend. And when I say pathetic I refer to the offense. The pitching held up reasonably well considering we were doing two bullpen games and a Price start (which translates into a third bullpen game because apparently Price can’t go more than 4 innings, 5 if everything goes perfectly).
As Joe and Orel were quick to point out (even before the homer), why wasn’t Cron intentionally walked in the first inning? The guys who follow him in the order are vastly inferior hitters. Of course it turns out that 1 run would have been enough for the Rox to win today.
It’s really remarkable how a team with so many very good hitters can have such an inconsistent offense. And for those who want to talk about run differential, if you win one game 12-0 and lose the next three by one run each, you’ve still lost 3 out of 4, even though you can stand there and point to your great run differential.
OK, enough venting on my part. Put this one behind us and see if we can get inspired when facing better competition.
The Giants play 4 with the Brewers while we play 3 with the Braves and then we head to SF for 3.
The September schedule might actually favor the Giants, depending on how well the Padres play next month.
Remaining games after the LA-SF series:
Giants : Padres – 10, Rox – 6, Cubs – 3, Braves – 3, D’backs – 3 (last 3 at home against SD)
Dodgers: Cards – 4, Reds – 3, Rox – 3, Padres – 6, D’backs – 6, Brewers – 3 (last 3 at home against Brewers)
If the Padres roll over and play dead, it will probably be hard to catch SF, but if they get inspired (16 games left against SF and LA, plus they’re still fighting for the WC) they could be a real obstacle for both teams. I know Gordon doesn’t think so, but I still feel the Padres have a very good team. It’s my opinion that they will wind up deciding who wins the division based on their play against the Giants and us.
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Ah what’s Gordon know. You could be right. You usually are. If Padres get on a roll they could finish over 500 this year. Nah.
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You think I’m usually right? You’ve just lost all credibility.
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Ah what’s jeff know? You could ge wrong. You usually are. That better? Lol
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I don’t know if it’s better, but it’s sounds more familiar.
Have you been talking to my wife?
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