ST. LOUIS — Andy Pages tapped the top of his helmet as plate umpire Chris Guccione wound up to punch him out, taking one final stab at extending the Dodgers’ scoring opportunity in the eighth inning.
The Busch Stadium scoreboard lit up with a graphic of the strike zone. The ball flew in, touching the top of the rectangle and turning it red. The call was confirmed. Strike three.
In a 7-2 loss to the Cardinals on Friday, that was one of six at-bats the Dodgers had with runners in scoring position. They didn’t record a hit in any of them.
Instead, the Dodgers (20-12) only scored on Max Muncy’s double with a runner on first in the second inning, and Kyle Tucker’s bases-loaded sacrifice fly in the sixth. It marked their third straight loss, scoring two or fewer runs in each.
“It’s been hard,” said left fielder Teoscar Hernández, who had a ground-ball single and a walk Friday. “Obviously, we don’t want to start the season the way we have started. But we have done a lot of work. Everybody knows this is not easy, hitting, being consistent. We just have to go up there trying to have good at-bats, create situations, put the ball in play, get on base.
“But I think we got unlucky. A lot of guys have been hitting the ball really good, right at people. But we control what we can control, and just leave the rest to baseball.”
Even amid a down stretch, the Dodgers still showed off their scoring power with a pair of 12-run performances in the last two weeks — even if one was at hitter-friendly Coors Field. And they entered Friday leading the majors with an .802 OPS. So all is not lost.
The top of the batting order, however, isn’t producing. Mookie Betts, who would be batting No. 3 in the order, has been out since early April with a strained right oblique.
Shohei Ohtani and Kyle Tucker have had slow starts. Freddie Freeman has been in an offensive lull since taking over the No. 2 spot last week.
The Dodgers entered Friday with the top three spots in the batting order producing a .734 OPS, ranking 22nd in MLB.
The bottom half of the order, and Pages in particular, was carrying the offense early on. But when those hitters cooled, the top of the order didn’t fill the gap.
“Unfortunately, we have a lot more guys that are not swinging the bats well than that are,” manager Dave Roberts said. “And so shuffling the lineup, I just don’t think that’s a solution right now — outside of versus left versus right [pitching matchups].”
On Friday, the Dodgers scored fewer runs than the Cardinals scored in the first inning alone.
“They swung the bat better than we did,” Roberts said. “And we didn’t play well enough.”
Dodgers right-hander Emmet Sheehan’s start went south in one at-bat.
Dodgers starting pitcher Emmet Sheehan delivers during the first inning Friday against the Cardinals.
(Dilip Vishwanat / Getty Images)
With two outs in the first inning and runners on first and second, Sheehan worked ahead to an 0-2 count against Nolan Gorman.
Dodgers catcher Will Smith then attempted a back-pick at second base, but his errant throw bounced to the opposite side of the base and past shortstop Miguel Rojas.
With runners at second and third, Sheehan did not declare he was going to switch to throwing from the stretch instead of the hybrid position. So, he was called for a balk, bringing the first run of the game across the plate.
“Mental mistake,” Sheehan said. “I know the rule. It was just in the moment, I didn’t declare it. And, yeah, unacceptable.”
Gorman battled Sheehan to a full count. Then Sheehan left a high fastball over the plate, and Gorman sent it into the right-field stands for a two-run blast.
Sheehan bounced back with a 1-2-3 second inning. But he surrendered a solo homer to slugger Alec Burleson in the third.
By the time Sheehan exited with two outs in the fifth inning, before Gorman was due up again, he’d given up a season-high eight hits.
“I feel like we’ve been making progress and then taking a step back,” Sheehan said. “And, yeah, it’s definitely frustrating. But we know we need to work on, it’s just fixing it now.”
The Cardinals (19-13) widened their lead in the seventh inning, putting together a three-run rally against reliever Edgardo Henriquez. And the Dodgers offense never threatened a comeback.
“We’re in a little funk offensively, which is certainly obvious,” Roberts said. “But you’ve just got to keep going. I believe in the guys, the hitting coaches do, the guys do. You’ve got to keep working and know that it will click one night and we all come together. But it’s not one at-bat. It’s not one particular hitter that is bringing the group down. We’ve all got to come together and expect things to change.”