The Los Angeles Dodgers have not been playing great lately, going 26-26 since the start of July.
A .500 record over the course of two months is not terrible, and the team still has one of the best records in baseball, but when the lineup and rotation are as good as they are, .500 feels like a letdown. One of the biggest issues for the Dodgers has been that their star hitters are slumping. In fact, some have been struggling all season. Andy Pages' injury and Will Smith missing a chunk of games certainly do not help.
Smith is back now, but it will take more than just him to get the team on track. One player who has played well as of late is Mookie Betts. Betts is not having a great year overall, and his struggles are part of the reason the Dodgers have not been as dominant as expected. Betts had a .670 OPS on Aug. 4.
Since then, he has had a .304/.379/.478 slash line. He has raised his OPS to .714 and is starting to look like the superstar he is. The Dodgers will need him to stay hot through the final month and in October.
Freddie Freeman has been good all year, and Shohei Ohtani will likely get back to swinging a hot bat very soon. When those two and Betts are going right, the Dodgers already know they can win the World Series.
Their starting rotation is expected to be the best in the postseason, so all they really need is for the offense to break out of an extended slump. Betts' resurgence is a great sign for the Dodgers offense and should give fans hope that the team could start dominating again soon.
Their offense scored the sixth fewest runs in baseball in August, and they went 13-14 in the month. That is certainly not the standard the team has set, and they will need the stars to step up if they want to go on another World Series run.