Dodgers make offensive progress with sweep of Nationals

Phil Gurnee ♦ May 21, 2018 ♦ Leave a comment

Things looked very grim for the Dodgers as they headed into a key three-game series against the hottest team in the National League after winning just two of the previous eleven games against mostly sub five hundred win percentage teams.

The Dodgers got a rainout on Friday and whatever they did on that off day they should try to emulate because they bounced back Saturday to sweep a doubleheader, and completed a three-game sweep of the Nationals with another win on Sunday.

With the Diamondbacks losing every time they take the field, the Dodgers are only five games back of first place even with an 8 – 10 record in May.

One thing I noticed headed into the weekend was how many pundits and fans were saying the Dodgers were a bad team.  Playing poorly during a given time frame does not equate to being a bad team.  Fans should really remember this. There is no doubt that without Corey Seager this is not the 2017 team, but it is far from a bad team.

I think.

Yasiel Puig had a big week and surpassed Max Muncy as the Dodgers best hitter so far in May with a massive OPS of 1.018. Max Muncy didn’t falter having another good week and giving the Dodgers a valid reason to keep him in the lineup by using Bellinger in CF.

Kemp is getting plenty of rest as Dave Roberts now has a Puig/Joc/Kemp/Kiké/Bellinger all getting starts in the outfield.  Joc doesn’t have good numbers for the month but he had a nice weekend batting near the top of the lineup.

Justin Turner and Logan Forsythe returned. Turner made an impact, Logan not so much but he did look better this weekend.

The two catchers are having a nice month, and that is probably what Barnes is going to be going forward now that Forsythe is back.  No more three catcher lineups with Farmer in AAA and Barnes now the backup catcher.

For a team struggling to win, the offensive stats don’t look so bad. Only Chase is really scuffling.  The key problem was the lack of home runs with runners on base, something they took care of this weekend.

Dodgers hit their first homer with a man on base since May 1!

— Jon Weisman (@jonweisman) May 20, 2018

May Offensive stats:

More May offensive stats:

Matt Kemp leads the team in May with twenty-one hits and seven doubles but only one home run. Max Muncy is tied with Cody Bellinger for the team lead in RBI with 10.

Turner, Joc, Logan, and Chase have yet to go yard this month. Of course, JT and Logan just returned but Joc has had 56 plate appearances without a home run.

All stats in this article were courtesy of Baseball Ref split tool.