During most of this World Series, manager Dave Roberts said he had been contemplating a change to the Dodgers scuffling lineup.
After the team’s 6-2 loss in Game 4 on Tuesday, he said he was “going to think long and hard” about the batting order and hinted “it might look a little bit different tomorrow.”
Did it ever.
For Wednesday’s Game 5, the Dodgers lineup included multiple notable changes. First, slumping shortstop Mookie Betts, who has hit just .147 over his last eight games, was dropped from the No. 2 to No. 3 spot, with catcher Will Smith bumping up to bat behind leadoff man Shohei Ohtani.
At the bottom of the order, Andy Pages was dropped to the bench after batting .080 this postseason, and Alex Call drew into the lineup playing left field. Kiké Hernández shifted from left field to center.
The moves reflected the urgency of the Dodgers’ current situation, in which they find themselves in a 2-2 World Series deadlock with the Toronto Blue Jays thanks in no small part to their .214 team batting average in this World Series.
“There’s a few of us that need to be successful,” Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman said. “It can’t always just be Shohei. We understand that.”
Really, the Dodgers haven’t looked right at the plate since scoring 18 runs in the two-game wild card round. Since then, they scored more than five runs in a game only once (and that came in Monday’s 18-inning marathon, when they had six). They batted .199 as a team in the NL Division Series, .250 in the NL Championship Series and now have scored just three runs in their last 20 innings of this Fall Classic.
The struggles of Betts and Pages in particular have been costly, failing to provide an on-base threat in front of Ohtani in the nine-hole (where Pages had been hitting) or lineup protection behind him (with Betts batting just one-for-six this series after an Ohtani walk).