{"id":252708,"date":"2025-10-31T07:31:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T07:31:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/252708\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T07:31:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T07:31:08","slug":"dodgers-need-bats-to-wake-up-or-not-even-yoshinobu-yamamoto-can-save-them","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/252708\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers need bats to wake up or not even Yoshinobu Yamamoto can save them"},"content":{"rendered":"

What does Yoshinobu Yamamoto have up his sleeve for an encore to his encore?<\/p>\n

It may not actually matter unless his offense wakes up.<\/p>\n

With their season on the line in Game 6 of the World Series on Friday night at Rogers Centre, the Dodgers will send Yamamoto to the mound on the heels of back-to-back, complete-game gems, which should provide a comforting feeling. <\/p>\n

But only to an extent because the Dodgers\u2019 bigger concern as they flew back to Canada was whether their bats would show up again before it was too late.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t feel great,\u201d manager Dave Roberts said. \u201cYou clearly see [the Blue Jays] finding ways to get hits, move the baseball forward, and we\u2019re not doing a good job of it. \u2026 You still have to use the whole field and take what they give you, and if they\u2019re not going to allow for slug, then you\u2019ve got to be able to kind of redirect and club down to take competitive at-bats.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have that ability. We\u2019ve got to make some adjustments. We have seen [Kevin] Gausman a ton, a lot of our guys have seen him, so we just got to come in fresh. We\u2019ve been in elimination games, a core group of these guys, and we got to find a way to win a game. That\u2019s it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LosYoshinobu Yamamoto celebrates with right fielder Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez after throwing a complete game in the Dodgers\u2019 Game 2 World Series win over the Blue Jays. AP<\/p>\n

Through five games, the Dodgers are batting just .201 with a .651 OPS. After taking a 2-1 lead in the series with an 18-inning thriller in Game 3, they have hit just 10-for-61 (.164) with eight singles and a .465 OPS.<\/p>\n

Of course, it is not entirely a World Series problem for the Dodgers, who Roberts admitted after Game 4 have yet to find their rhythm this postseason. After mauling the Reds in the NL wild-card series, they have hit just .214 across the NLDS, NLCS and World Series, averaging just 3.5 runs per game while leaning largely on the strength of their starting pitching.<\/p>\n

\"LosMookie Betts reacts after striking out during the first inning of the Dodgers\u2019 Game 5 loss to the Blue Jays. ALLISON DINNER\/EPA\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

\u201cWe got a lot of confidence [in Yamamoto], but we got to hit,\u201d Mookie Betts said<\/a>. \u201cWe got to hit. Yoshi can go do his thing, which we need him to, obviously, but we got to hit. There\u2019s no other way around it.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t have cable, you\u2019ll need a live TV streaming service to stream the World Series for free.<\/p>\n

One of our favorite options is DIRECTV<\/a>, which offers over 125 channels, including FOX, the MLB network, and ESPN unlimited. Plans start at $49.99\/month, but you can start watching for free today with their 5-day free trial.<\/p>\n

Betts has been among the Dodgers\u2019 biggest culprits, hitting just .234 with a .648 OPS over the full postseason, including 3-for-23 in the World Series, which led to him being dropped to the three-spot in the Game 5 lineup. <\/p>\n

Max Muncy has hit just .188 with a .693 OPS, including 3-for-20 in the World Series. <\/p>\n

And Tommy Edman is hitting .232 with a .646 OPS, including 3-for-21 in the World Series.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think [Betts] is pressing,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cHopefully, the off day, find a way to get away from it, and then go out there and just kind of focus on one game and be good for one game, go out there and compete. But I think you can see, you know, there\u2019s a little anxiousness in there. But it\u2019s not the first time he\u2019s struggled. It\u2019s not the first time he\u2019s faced elimination. And it\u2019s not just Mookie. It\u2019s everyone that\u2019s got to do their part too.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What does Yoshinobu Yamamoto have up his sleeve for an encore to his encore? It may not actually…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252709,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,1187,591,64736,85,7891,47542],"class_list":["post-252708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-los-angeles-dodgers","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-playoffs","tag-sports","tag-world-series","tag-yoshinobu-yamamoto"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}