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Los Angeles Dodgers’ Mookie Betts reacts in the dugout during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals Monday, Aug. 4, 2025, in Los Angeles, Calif. (AP Photo/Eric Thayer)
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Los Angeles Dodgers’ Mookie Betts reacts in the dugout during the fifth inning of a baseball game against the St. Louis Cardinals Monday, Aug. 4, 2025, in Los Angeles, Calif. (AP Photo/Eric Thayer)
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LOS ANGELES — The hitter the Dodgers have been waiting for returned Monday. The offense, as a whole, remains a work in progress.
Max Muncy was activated onto the roster and into the starting lineup after spending a month away with a bone bruise in his left knee, but hits remained hard to come by in a 3-2 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals.
Freddie Freeman is at least coming to life with his third home run in the past five games after going his first 23 games of July without one.
But the Dodgers managed just three hits all night and looked a lot like the team that went 10-16 while Muncy was out of action.
“Through seven innings we really didn’t take really good at-bats,” Roberts said after noting positive trips to the plate from Freeman, Shohei Ohtani and Muncy but little else. “There wasn’t much hard contact in there. You get the reliever in there and we scored a run.
“It’s just hard to win a game with three hits but for me the offense will get on track. It’s going to happen at some point. We’re just too talented for it not to.”
On the mound, Tyler Glasnow wobbled through the second inning when he gave up a home run to Masyn Winn, but otherwise dominated by retiring 17 of the last 18 batters he faced following a walk to Pedro Pages in the second.
Glasnow was left with a no-decision despite allowing one run on three hits with two walks and seven strikeouts in his seven innings of work.
“Just having a conversation with (pitching coach Mark) Prior, just trying to get back to going even quicker,” Glasnow said about his effectiveness after the second inning. “I just think I was late. Nothing felt good in the zone and my release point was inconsistent. … It depends on the start, but that is what helped today.”
The Cardinals went to work against the Dodgers’ bullpen first when Ivan Herrera hit a home run against Anthony Banda in the eighth for a 2-1 lead. They got to new roster addition Brock Stewart in the ninth when Willson Contreras and Lars Nootbaar led off with singles. Yohel Pozo brought home the go-ahead run with a two-out single.
Stewart has familiarity with the Dodgers after parts of four seasons with the club through 2019, yet he knows he is in an adjustment period. His aim is to keep it a short one.
“I know they brought me here for a reason,” Stewart said. “They just told me, pretty much, do what you’ve been doing. Don’t try to be too perfect. Don’t try to change anything. … So that’s what I’m gonna do.”
With Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts on a continued downturn at the top of the order, the Dodgers turned Cardinals starter Sonny Gray back into a force. In his three starts before facing the Dodgers, Gray gave up a combined 30 hits with 17 earned runs and 19 total runs.
It was vintage Gray on Monday after he gave up one hit (Freeman’s home run) over seven innings with eight strikeouts.
The crowd attempted to do its part by giving the Betts the Trea Turner treatment, but to no avail. Fans were boisterous for Betts’ first and third at-bats of the game that resulted in a fly out and a strikeout looking, but the third strike appeared to be out of the zone on replay.
Philadelphia Phillies fans famously used energetic support with Turner to help him emerge from a 2023 slump during his first season with the club after leaving the Dodgers.
It is getting so bad for Betts that he was robbed of a hit in the ninth inning on a diving catch near the right-field foul line by Nootbaar. A hit would have moved Ohtani into scoring position with no outs in the ninth.
Ohtani and Betts combined to go 1-for-8 with three strikeouts, with Betts now 0-for-21 going back to last Tuesday’s game at Cincinnati.
Manager Dave Roberts said that even with Betts batting .231, with a .657 OPS, he plans on leaving the former MVP at the top of the order.
“I just feel that if you weigh the options, the alternatives and things like that, I’m going to continue to believe in him and trust that he’s the best option,” Roberts said. “And you know, whether it’s in the No. 1 or the No. 2 (spots), that’s what we’re going to roll with.
“I think that the questions are fair as far as kind of moving them down and things like that. But this guy is a premium player, and he’s just in this extended funk, but he’s going to work his way out of this.”
A two-week experiment to move Betts into the leadoff spot despite the struggles was to no avail and was aborted on the just-completed road trip.
With Winn’s home run and another from Ivan Herrera to give the Cardinals a 2-1 lead in the eighth inning, the Dodgers got creative to tie it in the bottom of the eighth. Teoscar Hernandez doubled, while pinch runner Esteury Ruiz went to third on a Michael Conforto ground out and scored on an Andy Pages grounder.
Even with team struggles that have been going on for a month, during an injury-plagued season, Roberts says he has no reason to lose faith. Amid constant talk about what is wrong with the club, the Dodgers are still 65-48 and better than all but the Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago Cubs in the National League.
“For us offensively, just being able to build innings, take good at-bats, I think that is something that we’re all trying to strive for right now,” Roberts said. “But I think the defense, the pitching, the run prevention side of things has been really solid. I look at that lineup every day and feel really good about putting some runs on the board and we just gotta go out there and do it.”
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