{"id":247912,"date":"2026-04-02T04:30:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T04:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/247912\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T04:30:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T04:30:09","slug":"dodgers-drop-series-to-guardians-after-lackluster-offensive-showing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/247912\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers drop series to Guardians after lackluster offensive showing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

There\u2019s a lot of season left and little evidence to go on, but \u2026<\/p>\n

Fans are going to ask: What is going on with the Dodgers<\/a>\u2019 bats? About all they\u2019re hitting is the snooze button \u2014 snoozing and, on Wednesday, losing 4-1<\/a> to the Cleveland Guardians at Dodger Stadium.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers\u2019 super-imposing lineup looked mostly lifeless most of the game, with only Andy Pages<\/a> providing a spark in the No. 8 spot until Freddie Freeman<\/a> hit his first home run this season with two outs in the ninth inning. That cut the Guardians\u2019 lead to three runs before Will Smith<\/a> flied out to deep center to end it.<\/p>\n

Before Freeman\u2019s 407-foot blast, Pages had the only answers for Guardians starter Gavin Williams. In seven innings, Cleveland\u2019s 6-foot-6 right-hander frustrated Dodgers hitters, holding them to two hits, striking out 10 without giving up a run.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers finally threatened against reliever Shawn Armstrong in the eighth inning, getting runners on second and third on a Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez single and Pages double, but Shohei Ohtani struck out on three pitches to end the inning.<\/p>\n

He and his teammates continued to be plagued by slow starts to start this season, digging themselves a too-familiar hole Wednesday, falling behind 2-0 for the fifth time in six games.<\/p>\n

And this time, they couldn\u2019t conjure up a clutch hit or two to help them climb out of it \u2014 including none by Ohtani, who is now three for 18 with seven walks and no extra-base hits this season.<\/p>\n

After telling reporters Tuesday night he felt his swing was \u201ca little off,\u201d Ohtani took a rare on-field batting practice Wednesday \u2014 just as he had before his epic three-home run game that he also pitched and struck out 10 to close out last season\u2019s NLCS against the Milwaukee Brewers.<\/p>\n

\"Dodgers <\/p>\n

Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto delivers during the first inning Wednesday against the Guardians.<\/p>\n

(Ronaldo Bolanos \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Watching home runs fly through the fresh air before the game didn\u2019t prove as effective a remedy this time.<\/p>\n

After Ohtani\u2019s first-inning walk extended his overall on-base streak to 37 games, the Dodgers\u2019 leadoff man went 0 for 3 at the plate, including being called out on a challenge that resulted in a double play in the sixth inning.<\/p>\n

Before Ohtani took batting practice, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts took questions about his biggest star\u2019s tepid start and said he wasn\u2019t worried.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s going to be guys that we\u2019re talking about that are off to slow starts, and then a series later, the article is going to be \u2018He\u2019s off to a hot start,\u2019\u201d Roberts said. \u201cAnd it could change in two days. So it\u2019s certainly overblown. I completely understand it \u2014 but the guys that have been around a long time understand that you can\u2019t let that affect you.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

The Dodgers\u2019 hitters might be waiting on a wakeup call, but the Guardians jumped on Yoshinobu Yamamoto<\/a> in the third inning, scoring twice on miscues by him and catcher Smith.<\/p>\n

Daniel Schneemann, the Guardians\u2019 No. 7 hitter, hit a leadoff double to right field, got a good jump on Yamamoto, stole third base and then jogged home after Smith\u2019s errant throw wound up in left field.<\/p>\n

Yamamoto then let Gabriel Arias, the No. 8 hitter, get a hold of a curveball for a 407-foot home run to straightaway center field, his first this season.<\/p>\n

Those were the only runs Cleveland scored on Yamamoto, last season\u2019s World Series MVP. In six innings, the right-hander gave up four hits, struck out two, walked a batter and hit Angel Mart\u00ednez on the inside of the left knee \u2014 in almost precisely the same place that Ohtani did Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

The Guardians (4-3) pushed the lead to 4-0 when they took out some insurance with two more runs in the eighth inning when Jos\u00e9 Ram\u00edrez\u2019s fly ball cleared the left-field wall for a two-run home run that also brought across Mart\u00ednez, who had walked.<\/p>\n

Yamamoto (1-1) didn\u2019t have his pinpoint command, but yet again, he also didn\u2019t get any help from his friends. Ranking in the bottom five among big league pitchers in run support last season, the Dodgers couldn\u2019t drum up support for their ace of aces Wednesday either.<\/p>\n

Williams, conversely, was pin-prick sharp, confounding the Dodgers (4-2) with the exception of Pages, who had hits in both of his at-bats against Williams.<\/p>\n

With Yamamoto taking the hill, the Dodgers became the first team in MLB history to start three consecutive Japanese-born pitchers \u2014 with Sasaki having started Monday, Ohtani on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s fantastic,\u201d said Roberts, who was born in Naha, Okinawa, Japan. \u201cThese guys are three great men. They\u2019re all different.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is just a special time in Major League Baseball, certainly with the Japanese players that we\u2019re fortunate to have and around the league, and players of all nationalities. It\u2019s an honor to know that I manage these three guys.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s a lot of season left and little evidence to go on, but \u2026 Fans are going to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":247913,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[6132,426,17906,96605,423,98440,1049,10198,4468,48,52,51,3376,47,50,49,18158,278,422,3578,18490],"class_list":{"0":"post-247912","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-andy-pages","9":"tag-dodgers","10":"tag-fifth-time","11":"tag-first-home-run","12":"tag-game","13":"tag-guardians","14":"tag-hit","15":"tag-hitter","16":"tag-inning","17":"tag-la","18":"tag-la-headlines","19":"tag-la-news","20":"tag-last-season","21":"tag-los-angeles","22":"tag-los-angeles-headlines","23":"tag-los-angeles-news","24":"tag-no","25":"tag-season","26":"tag-shohei-ohtani","27":"tag-will-smith","28":"tag-yamamoto"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247912","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247912"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247912\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}