Dodgers hit 4 home runs and easily take their 5th straight win – Orange County Register

MILWAUKEE – Clayton Kershaw has become quite the analyst. When he’s not pitching, he can often be found wearing a headset and reporting from the team’s dugout on broadcasts by SportsNet LA or national networks like TBS.

However, he made this small prediction after his start on Monday in the clubhouse.

“We’re putting our team together the way we want it,” he said of the return of injured players like Mookie Betts this week and the expected addition of more in the near future. “I think you’re going to see us hit the ground running here soon.”

Maybe they have already done so.

The Dodgers hit four home runs in the first four innings on Tuesday night – one each by Shohei Ohtani, Gavin Lux, Will Smith and Andy Pages – and cruised to their fifth consecutive win, a 7-2 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers.

The win kept the Dodgers (71-49) in a tie with the Cleveland Guardians, who currently have the best record in baseball (the Baltimore Orioles lost on Tuesday), and kept the up-and-coming Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres at bay.

Smith opened the scoring with his solo home run in the second inning. It had been a long time coming.

Smith was in a three-month slump and hadn’t hit a home run since July 6 – 22 games (for him) and 96 batting appearances ago. Smith only had a .145 batting average between home runs (and a .191 batting average since late May). But he added a single and a double in his next two at-bats.

“He needed it. He’s been working hard, man,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “He just doesn’t let it show in his demeanor. But he’s been working really hard. He evened up a couple of balls, kept a ball fair that was in, another ball in and he hit it to left field. He got to the pitch, which he hasn’t been able to do the last few weeks. Just getting some hits was a good thing.”

Smith did this from the sixth spot in the lineup. After batting fourth for most of the season and occasionally second when Mookie Betts was out with his hand injury, Roberts dropped Smith to sixth in this series.

“I just wanted to give him a different look and let the game come to him,” Roberts said. “I know he doesn’t feel any pressure, but I still think letting the game happen might take some of the pressure off.”

“I still believe he needs to be fourth or fifth for us to be the best version of our ball club. But that depends on him swinging the bat well and earning that right.”

Smith admitted that his dip in form frustrated him: “It’s always frustrating when you’re struggling.” He made “some small adjustments” to get his “body back into the right movements.”

“The load my hands had to put on, I had to synchronize and connect everything using the ground,” Smith said. “I wasn’t far off. It’s a tough game, so if you’re off by just a little bit, it’s hard to keep up. Just hard work.”

It’s been a while for Pages, too. He hit a two-run home run off the foul pole down the left field line, part of a five-run fourth inning and his first home run since June 18. The rookie outfielder had a .228 batting average in the 40 games between home runs.

Lux’s two-run home run also came in the fourth inning, hitting the second deck in right field to match his career high for a season (seven). Five of those seven home runs came in a 29-game series in which Lux posted a .337 batting average (30-for-89), turning around a season that took a while to get going.

“He hadn’t played baseball for a year. It makes you wonder if I’ll ever be able to hit again,” Roberts said. “But to his credit, he just kept going and fought through it. I think that’s the best version of Gavin Lux I’ve ever seen.”

Ohtani’s 37th home run of the season (a solo home run in the third inning) was his fifth in 11 games this month, despite having only nine hits in August (and a .191 batting average since late July).

Everyone in the Dodgers’ starting lineup had at least one hit in this win.