Is there a chance that a team so recently dubbed, \u201cinvincible\u201d and \u201cunbeatable\u201d is actually more like \u201cmaddening\u201d and \u201cmediocre?\u201d<\/p>\n
Does baseball\u2019s reigning emperor have no clothes?<\/p>\n
That was some of the talk floating through the late afternoon haze Sunday as the Dodgers<\/a> followed the worst loss in Dodger Stadium history<\/a> with one of the most frustrating of the season<\/a>.<\/p>\n One moment the Chicago Cubs were beating the Dodgers 16-0, then less than 24 hours later they were winning with a quarter of those runs. One moment the Cubs were embarrassing the Dodgers, the next moment they were enraging them, a 4-2 loss<\/a> that dropped the Dodgers<\/a> to 3-6 since their 8-0 start.<\/p>\n They have lost three consecutive series for the first time in nearly a year, and it only happened once last season, and, yes, late Sunday that was Max Muncy<\/a>\u2019s bat and helmet flying through the air.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just a bumpy two weeks,\u201d said Mookie Betts<\/a>, adding, \u201cThis isn\u2019t the first time we sucked for two weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n The adjective in the first sentence was appropriate. The verb in the second sentence was perfect.<\/p>\n The Dodgers lost Sunday\u2019s game despite six strong innings from Tyler Glasnow, who gave up a couple of runs on two homers and rebounded from a muddy beating in Philadelphia to pitch as wonderfully as the weather.<\/p>\n But starting pitching isn\u2019t the problem. It\u2019s everything else.<\/p>\n The fielding generally stinks, witness the misplayed fly ball in the left-field corner by Michael Conforto that led to the eighth-inning clinching run.<\/p>\n \u201cOuts that we have to have, we gotta convert those,\u201d said manager Dave Roberts<\/a> for the umpteenth time.<\/p>\n The hitting, meanwhile, really stinks, this historic offense began the game ranking eighth in baseball in strikeouts and OPS while drawing only the 17th-most walks.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re trying to get the job done,\u201d said Betts. \u201cWe\u2019re just not.\u201d<\/p>\n In other words, the magic of all those wondrous plate appearances in October have at least temporarily disappeared. This Dodger team doesn\u2019t work the count, they don\u2019t wear down the pitcher, they don\u2019t own the moment.<\/p>\n The top of the lineup has been decent, but the bottom of the order has been non-existent<\/a>.<\/p>\n Kik\u00e9 Hern\u00e1ndez is five for 44. Miguel Rojas is five for 31. Muncy is nine for 51 and still without a homer.<\/p>\n