scoring position

TORONTO — It was a miserably cold, rainy and gray afternoon outside Rogers Centre on Thursday.

Inside the stadium, however, the Dodgers found some rays of emotional sunshine.

No, this is not where the team wanted to be, facing a 3-2 deficit in the World Series entering Game 6 on Friday night against the Toronto Blue Jays.

And no, there was not much to feel good about after a disastrous 48 hours in Games 4 and 5 of this Fall Classic, in which the Dodgers relinquished control of the series and allowed their title-defense campaign to be put on life support.

But during an off-day workout, the club tried to rebound from that disappointment and reframe the downtrodden mindset that permeated the clubhouse after Game 5.

Every player showed up to the ballpark, even though attendance was optional after a long night of travel.

“That was pretty exciting for me, and just speaks to where these guys are at,” manager Dave Roberts said. “They realize that the job’s not done.”

Roberts brought some levity to the start of the workout, too, challenging speedster Hyeseong Kim to a race around the bases — only to stumble face-first on the turn around second while trying to preserve his comically large head start.

“Cut the cameras,” Roberts yelled to media members, as he playfully grabbed at his hamstring and wiped dirt off his sweatshirt.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts reacts after falling while challenging Hyeseong Kim to a race on the basepaths during a team workout at Rogers Centre on Thursday.

(Vaughn Ridley / Getty Images)

Then, the Dodgers got to work on their primary task: Trying to sync up an offense that had looked lost the last two games, and has scuffled through much of October.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this … and I could dive into my thoughts,” Roberts said of the team’s offensive struggles, which he noted could include another lineup alteration for Game 6.

“But I think at the end of the day,” Roberts continued, “they just have to compete and fight in the batter’s box. It’s one-on-one, the hitter versus the pitcher, and that’s it. Really. I mean, I think that that sort of mindset is all I’ll be looking for. And I expect good things to happen from that.”

In the losses at Chavez Ravine, the majors’ second-highest scoring offense struggled to hone that ethos. The Dodgers scored only three runs, racked up a woeful 10 hits and looked more like the version of themselves that stumbled through much of the second half of the season before entering the playoffs on a late-season surge.

Their biggest stars stopped hitting. Their teamwide approach went by the wayside. And in the aftermath of Game 5, they almost seemed to be searching for their identity as a team at the plate — trying to couple their naturally gifted slugging ability, with the need to work more competitive at-bats and earn hittable pitches first.

“We’re just not having good at-bats,” third baseman Max Muncy said.

“We’ve got to figure something out,” echoed shortstop Mookie Betts.

Take a quick glance at the numbers in this World Series, and the Dodgers’ hitting problems are relatively easy to explain.

Shohei Ohtani (who took another Ruthian round of batting practice Thursday) does not have a hit since reaching base nine times in the 18-inning Game 3 marathon. Betts (who spent as much time hitting as anyone Thursday) has bottomed out with a three-for-25 performance.

Other important bats, including Muncy and Tommy Edman, are hitting under .200. And as a team, the Dodgers have 55 strikeouts (11 more than the Blue Jays), a .201 overall average and just six hits in 30 at-bats with runners in scoring position.

“We got a lot of guys who aren’t hot right now, aren’t feeling the best,” Edman said Wednesday night. “But we got to turn the page, and hopefully we can swing it better the next couple days.”

“As a group,” Kiké Hernández added, “it’s time for us to show our character and put up a fight and see what happens. … It’s time for us, for the offense, to show up.”

Better production from Betts would be a good start.

On Wednesday night, the shortstop did not mince words about his recent offensive struggles, saying he has “just been terrible” after batting .164 in 13 games since the start of the National League Division Series.

Roberts tried to take some pressure off the former MVP in Game 5, moving him from second to third in a reshuffled batting order. But after that yielded yet another hitless performance, Roberts further simplified the task for his 33-year-old star.

“Focus on one game, and be good for one game,” Roberts said. “Go out there and compete.”

On Thursday, that was Betts’ focus, with multiple people around the team noting a quiet and renewed confidence he carried into his off-day batting practice session. He had long talks with hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc, special assistant Ron Roenicke and Roberts around the hitting cage. He searched for answers to a swing that, of late, has generated too many shallow pop-ups and mishit balls.

Dodgers teammates Mookie Betts, left, Max Muncy, Tommy Edman and Freddie Freeman wait on the infield during a pitching change in the seventh inning of Game 5 of the World Series on Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

“He looked great,” fellow hitting coach Aaron Bates said. “Actually, his head was in a good place. Good spirits. The whole group, guys were great. Everyone came and showed up and hit and got their work in.”

For the Dodgers to save their season, it isn’t only Betts who will need to find a turnaround.

While Blue Jays starters Shane Bieber and Trey Yesavage pitched well in Games 4 and 5, the Dodgers also seemed to struggle to adapt their plan of attack — getting stuck in an “in-between” state, as both Roberts and several players noted, of both trying to attack fastballs and protect against secondary stuff.

“Sometimes we’re too aggressive,” outfielder Teoscar Hernández said. “Sometimes we’re too patient.”

“It seems like at-bats are snowballing on us right now,” Kiké Hernández added. “We’re getting pitches to hit, we’re missing them. And we’re expanding the zone with two strikes.”

Being “in-between” was a problem for the Dodgers late in the season, when they ranked just 12th in the majors in scoring after the All-Star break. That it is happening again raises a familiar question about the identity of the club.

Do they want to be an aggressive, slugging lineup that lives and dies by the home run? Or more of a contact-minded unit capable of grinding out at-bats and stressing an opposing pitcher’s pitch count. Roberts’ emphasis on better “compete” signaled the need to do more of the latter.

Freeman echoed that notion leading up to Game 5.

“If we’re going up there just trying to hit home runs, it’s just not the name of the game,” Freeman said. “We just need to check down and have, like, almost a 0-1 mindset. Just build innings, extend ‘em, work counts, be who we are.”

So, how do they actually go about doing that, ahead of a Game 6 matchup with a pitcher in Kevin Gausman who excels at mixing his fastball and splitter?

“Basically, you have to keep to your strengths,” Bates said. “And see what the next pitcher brings to the table.”

The only silver lining: The Dodgers have been in this spot before.

Last year, at the very start of their World Series run, they faced a similar situation in the NLDS against the San Diego Padres, winning back-to-back games with clutch offensive outbursts that helped catapult them to an eventual World Series title.

“We can do it again,” Freeman said.

“I think we’re a more talented team than we were last year,” Kike Hernández added.

Entering Friday, they will have two games to prove it. Now or never. Do, or watch their dreams of cementing a dynasty die.

To Andrew Friedman, something like this was a virtual impossibility.

“If you had said that we would have a six-week stretch where our offense would rank 30th in baseball, I would have said there was a zero percent chance,” the Dodgers president of baseball operations said last month.

“I would have been wrong,” he quickly added.

Over a five-week stretch from July 4 to Aug. 4, the Dodgers inexplicably ranked 30th (out of 30 clubs) in scoring. And though they’ve been slightly better in the five weeks since, questions about their supposed juggernaut lineup still abound.

In the first half of the season, the Dodgers boasted the best offense in the majors, leading the majors in scoring (5.61 runs per game), batting average (.262), OPS (.796) and hitting with runners in scoring position (.300) and went 56-32 over their first 88 games.

Since then, however, everything has flipped.

It started with a July slump that was as stunning as it was unforeseen, with the Dodgers averaging just 3.36 runs in a 25-game stretch commencing with Independence Day. Since then, there have been only marginal improvements, with the Dodgers entering Friday ranked 24th in scoring (4.21 runs per game), 25th in batting average (.237), 18th in OPS (.718) and 22nd in hitting with runners in scoring position (.245) over their last 58 games — a stretch in which they’ve gone 26-32.

“Not scoring runs,” first baseman Freddie Freeman said last week, “it’s just not who we are.”

On the surface, the root causes seemed rather obvious. Much of their lineup was either on the injured list or scuffling in the wake of previous, nagging injuries. Healthy superstars were grinding through flaws with their swings. What little depth they had failed to compensate.

To that end, the team is hopeful it has turned the page.

Shohei Ohtani, after a midseason lull, is back to his MVP-caliber norms. Mookie Betts is back to looking like himself at the end of an otherwise career-worst season. Max Muncy and Tommy Edman have returned from injuries, providing the batting order with much-needed length. Significant playing time is no longer going to the likes of Buddy Kennedy, Alex Freeland, Estuery Ruiz or any of the other anonymous faces that populated the clubhouse during the campaign’s darkest days.

“Our lineup, our team, looks more whole,” manager Dave Roberts said this week. “I think that we’ve all been waiting for our guys to come back to health, and see what we look like as the ballclub that we had all envisioned.”

Still, when asked whether the Dodgers’ second-half slump could just be pinned on personnel issues, Roberts and his players said it wasn’t that simple.

The Dodgers might not have been whole. But they weren’t doing fundamental things — like stressing opposing pitchers, driving up pitch counts, or executing in leverage situations — either.

“We’d lost sight of playing the game the way we’re capable of playing,” Roberts acknowledged.

“For a little while,” Betts added, “we were having just some bad at-bats.”

This is the dynamic the Dodgers have honed in on fixing, hoping to turn their summer-long frustrations into a valuable learning experience as October nears.

In recent days, a renewed and deliberate emphasis has been placed on the importance of competitiveness at the plate. Daily hitters’ meetings have included film sessions reviewing situational at-bats from the previous night. In-game dugout conversations have centered on a more basic message.

“It’s more about your approach, your plan,” Freeman said. “That’s been the focus.”

This week, the team took what it hopes are important first steps, ambushing the Rockies with seven- and nine-run performances in which they advanced baserunners, capitalized on scoring opportunities and built the kind of big innings that been missing over the two months beforehand.

“We said a few games ago, ‘This needs to be like how we focus for the playoffs,’” Freeman said. “Focus on the little things that help win games.”

The Dodgers, of course, have seen what a broken offense looks like before.

And they know what happens when it doesn’t get rectified before the playoffs.

Late in 2022, as co-hitting coach Aaron Bates recalled this week, the team slipped into bad habits while nursing a massive National League West lead: “It felt like that whole month of September was swing camp, or spring training,” he said, “in the sense of guys working on their swings individually too much, as opposed to playing the game in front of them.”

The results then were costly: A four-game NL Division Series elimination to the San Diego Padres in which the Dodgers repeatedly failed with runners in scoring position.

The next year was more of the same: The team losing its identity while coasting down the stretch, before being swept by the Arizona Diamondbacks in three listless games.

Last season, the Dodgers finally avoided such pitfalls. They batted .278 with runners in scoring position during their postseason run to the World Series. Their tying and go-ahead runs in the Fall Classic clincher came on a pair of productive at-bats in the form of sacrifice flies.

The Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani has showed his MVP form in recent games, homering twice in last Sunday’s win against the Baltimore Orioles.

(Eric Thayer / For The Los Angeles Times)

But this summer, after a first-half outburst that met every lofty expectation of their $400 million roster, more troubling patterns began to resurface again.

Betts’ slow start devolved into a career-worst slump, bottoming out with a .205 average during July. Freeman began to fade right alongside him, with his .374 season average at the end of May plummeting to .292 less than two months later. Edman and Teoscar Hernández struggled after returning from first-half injuries. Michael Conforto never found his footing while Andy Pages endured an extended sophomore slide.

When coupled with Muncy’s prolonged absence — he missed 48 of 56 games because of a knee injury and oblique strain — the Dodgers suddenly had a lineup of players either grinding to rediscover their swing, or struggling to make up for the firepower they were missing.

And as easy scoring dried up, their inability to work consistent “team at-bats” quickly became magnified.

“It happened incrementally, every day, little by little,” Bates said. “Where it’s like, you’re a little off, you want to see what’s wrong with your swing, and you don’t realize that it snowballs. Before you know it, you’re thinking so much about your swing, you’re off of the situations out there.”

It was a problem, Bates insisted, borne of good intentions. Most of the roster was battling swing flaws. Too much daily energy was spent on players trying to individually get their mechanics right.

It led to mindless swings were wasted on bad pitches. It caused scoring opportunities to carelessly, and repeatedly, go frustatingly by the wayside.

“Guys just got so internal with their mechanics,” Bates said, “they weren’t able to shift their focus once the game starts to just competing in the box.”

Bates started sensing the trend while watching the team from afar, gaining a different perspective during a two-week medical absence in early August to address blood clots in his leg.

In the clubhouse, players began voicing similar observations after particularly puzzling offensive performances in recent weeks.

“I feel like a lot of swings that we took today weren’t really good swings to get on base,” veteran infielder Miguel Rojas said after the Dodgers managed only one hit in six innings against Padres left-hander Nestor Cortes on Aug. 23. “We know we’re more than capable of putting up better at-bats and more hits together to create some traffic.”

“We individually are trying to find ways on our own to make sure that we’re just hitting better than we are,” Ohtani echoed, through an interpreter, after the Dodgers’ one-run performance in a series-opener in Baltimore last weekend. “But I think the side effect of that is, we’re a little too eager, and putting too much pressure on ourselves.”

Thus, this week, the team endeavored to make changes.

In their daily pregame hitters’ meetings, the club has started holding what fellow co-hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc described to SportsNet LA as “NFL-style” film sessions; in which players were asked to review situational at-bats from the night before, and analyze their ability to execute their plan of attack.

“The game rewards you for having those ‘team at-bats,’” Bates said. “So you just preach to them by holding each other accountable, talking about them after the fact, not shying away from it.”

Freeman added that, in the dugout, players have also made an effort to emphasize that message among themselves.

“Don’t get upset because your swing didn’t feel good,” he said. “Like, if you go 0-for-four but move a runner over four times, that’s a great game for us. It might not be for your stats. But you gotta throw that out the window. That’s what we’ve been trying to clean up.”

The hope is that this renewed focus will naturally help hitters sync-up their swings.

On Monday night, for example, Betts moved a runner to third base with a fly ball in the sixth inning, before coming back to the plate and roping a tie-breaking two-run single with two outs in the eighth.

“He said it in the hitter’s meeting [the next day],” Freeman relayed, “how that little positive thing of moving [a runner] over helped him build confidence going into his next at-bat.”

Little moments like that, the Dodgers hope, will help kick-start their offense as they come up on the playoffs. They might not have been able to envision the struggles of the last two months. But now, between better health and improving at-bat quality, they finally see a way to fix their ailing offense.

“Now, we’re at least having good at-bats, getting a walk, extending innings, finding ways to manufacture runs,” Betts said.

“I do think that presently, the guys are engaged,” Roberts added. “Guys are playing as one right now.”

ST. LOUIS — The Dodgers’ offensive woes went from worrisome to a five-alarm emergency Saturday when they were lost their second game in less than 24 hours, falling 2-1 to the St. Louis Cardinals.

Nolan Gorman started the winning rally with a ground-rule double in the ninth. He gave way to pinch-runner Jose Barrero, who moved to third on a sacrifice bunt by Pedro Pages before scoring on Nolan Arenado’s pinch-hit single off Dodgers reliever Ben Casparius (4-1) to end the game.

The Cardinals appeared to have won the game in the eighth when Alec Burleson hit a one-hop comebacker that ricocheted off Casparius with two out. Casparius chased after the ball and made a hurried throw to first that pulled Freddie Freeman off the bag, allowing Masyn Winn to race home.

But the Dodgers matched that in the ninth on consecutive one-out singles by Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts. Freeman then struck out swinging, but the ball got away from catcher Pedro Pages, allowing Ohtani to score to tie the game.

The Dodgers left 12 runners on base and were hitless in 12 at-bats with runners in scoring position. They are one for 25 with runners in scoring position in their two games in St. Louis.

The slump couldn’t come at a worst team for the Dodgers, who begin a three-game series Monday in San Diego. The Padres entered Saturday a game back of the Dodgers in the National League West.

The Dodgers wasted a splendid performance from starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who allowed four hits while striking out nine in six scoreless innings, lowing his earned-run average to 2.20.

No Japanese pitcher has ever led an American major league in ERA; the Cubs’ Yu Darvish came closest when his 2.01 mark in the COVID-shortened 2020 season was second-best in the National League. Only two NL pitchers have better marks than Yamamoto this season.

The right-hander won four ERA titles in seven seasons with Orix in the Japanese Pacific League. Only Kazuhisa Inao, who debuted in 1956, won more. Three times Yamamoto had ERAs under 1.69 and his career mark in Japan was 1.72 in 188 starts.

It took the Dodgers until the ninth inning Monday night to erase their first two-run deficit.

But when Tanner Scott surrendered a pair of scores in the top of the 10th, they couldn’t do it again.

In a 4-3 extra-innings loss to the New York Mets on Monday, a night that started with frustration — then crescendoed with a late-game rally — ultimately ended in a familiar fizzle.

Despite tying it behind a seventh-inning home run and a ninth-inning sacrifice fly from Shohei Ohtani, the Dodgers (36-24) once again stumbled beneath the weight of their slumping closer.

In the top of the 10th, Scott gave up an RBI double to Francisco Alvarez to lead off the inning. Francisco Lindor followed with a down-the-line single to bring another run for the Mets (38-22). The left-hander, who signed for four years and $72 million this offseason, has a 4.73 earned-run average in his first 28 outings.

And after coming back once on Monday night, the Dodgers’ magic ran out in the bottom of the 10th.

Although Freddie Freeman led off with a walk, and Andy Pages followed with an RBI single that made it a one-run score, the Dodgers came up empty the rest of the way.

Max Muncy struck out. Will Smith pinch-hit for Michael Conforto at the last second — literally running out of the dugout with Conforto already digging in at the plate — but flied out to center. Then Tommy Edman scorched a comebacker straight to reliever Jose Buttó, concluding a night in which the Dodgers went two for 11 with runners in scoring position and stranded 11 men on base.

The result squandered a strong six-inning, two-run start from Dustin May. It let Ohtani’s late-game heroics go to waste.

And instead of a rollicking late-game comeback, the Dodgers instead suffered a second consecutive deflating defeat.

Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani hits a 424-foot home run to right field during the seventh inning Monday.

(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)

CORVALLIS, Ore. — USC baseball wanted to be aggressive knowing it was entering a hostile environment, playing in front of a sold-out crowd of 4,347 at Goss Stadium.

The Trojans tried to set the tone early.

Instead, it backfired, costing them early opportunities, early momentum and ultimately Sunday night’s matchup in a 14-1 loss to Oregon State in the Corvallis Regional final.

USC opened with two hard hits. Brayden Dowd singled and Ethan Hedges followed with a rocket to right-center field that came off the bat at 104 mph. It one-hopped the wall for an easy double that could have set the Trojans up with two runners in scoring position and no outs. But USC third base coach Travis Jewett was spinning his arm almost immediately, sending Dowd home.

Oregon State pitcher Kellan Oakes celebrates after striking out a batter to leave the bases loaded Sunday.

(Shotgun Spratling / For The Times)

Shortstop Aiva Arquette, an expected top 10 pick in next month’s MLB draft, fired a throw home that brought catcher Wilson Weber into the baseline where he applied the tag to Dowd while his knee collided with the head of the Trojans’ outfielder.

The play invigorated the home crowd and set the tone for the beatdown to follow that saw the No. 8 national seed Beavers thoroughly outplay the Trojans despite playing its second game of the day facing elimination. Oregon State pummeled Saint Mary’s, 20-3, Sunday afternoon to reach the final.

The next half inning, Oregon State attacked USC with four bunts that helped generate four runs. The Trojans’ aggressiveness again bit them.

Oregon State’s Wilson Weber, left, scores a run as USC third baseman Ethan Hedges misplays a bunt Sunday.

(Shotgun Spratling / For The Times)

After they took the out at first on an initial sacrifice attempt, the Trojans twice tried to cut down runners at home with ill-fated results. Third baseman Hedges muffed a barehand attempt when the ball bounced with funky spin on a hard bunt that one-hopped. The Beavers bunted again on the next pitch. First baseman Adrian Lopez tried to come home and was too late.

A base hit through the middle scored the next run before Oregon State went back to the bunt to score the fourth run, prompting the crowd to start chanting “Small Ball! Small Ball! Small Ball!”

Oregon State added two runs in the third inning to take a 6-1 lead. USC had a huge opportunity to get back in the game in the fifth inning, loading the bases with no outs and the heart of the lineup due up.

But the Beavers’ pitching staff had USC’s 3-4-5 hitters in a blender all night. Starter Wyatt Queen struck out Bryce Martin-Grudzielanek for the third time before turning the ball over to reliever Kellan Oakes, who struck out Lopez and Abbrie Covarrubias to escape the jam unscathed.

USC coach Andy Stankiewicz walks back to the dugout during a 14-1 loss to Oregon State on Sunday.

(Shotgun Spratling / For The Times)

Oregon State then piled on runs against the lesser-used arms in USC’s bullpen, scoring three runs in the sixth on Trent Caraway’s fourth home run in as many games.

USC has a chance for redemption Monday as Oregon State’s win forces a winner-take-all regional final at 3 p.m. PDT (ESPNU).