The Los Angeles Dodgers began the season aiming to become baseball's first back-to-back champions in 25 years. The offense frequently faltered, producing a bottom-five output for roughly two months despite substantial talent and intermittent injuries to key contributors. The San Diego Padres closed the gap and briefly overtook the Dodgers, sitting just two games ahead, a situation manager Dave Roberts views as more motivating than damaging. Roberts cited a lack of focus and urgency that only improved when the standings became interesting. President of baseball operations Andrew Friedman agreed the offense underperformed its talent across a six- to eight-week stretch. Several key offensive players, including Max Muncy, Tommy Edman, and Hyeseong Kim, missed meaningful time during the slump.
"I just think we didn't, we haven't - I just don't think we've put in the focus," Roberts said. "To be quite honest, I just don't think we had the urgency or focus that we needed to have. That's just the bottom line - because when the standings started to get interesting then our guys certainly have ramped up their quality of at-bat. The offensive performance has ticked up."
"It's not something I like saying. But I just don't see any other reason - given the talent we have - why we have been a bottom-five offense for two months. For our talent, that's just inexcusable."
"Obviously, [Roberts is] closer to it," Friedman said. "I think any time you're not hitting, it's going to look like there's a lack of urgency. Sometimes there's some truth to that. "But there is no doubt that for a six-, seven-, eight-week period we were underperforming our offensive talent."
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