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With the Los Angeles Dodgers experiencing a freefall in the standings, the decline continued after they lost to the Los Angeles Angels on Wednesday night, 6-5. As the Angels beat the Dodgers off a game-winning hit by catcher Logan O'Hoppe, star Mookie Betts spoke about the recent performance from the team and how crucial the next series against the San Diego Padres will be.
At a point in time six weeks ago, Los Angeles had a comfortable lead at the very top of the NL West, making it almost a certainty that the division would be theirs for the 12th time in 13 seasons.
Ever since then, the last 33 games have seen the Dodgers win only 12 of them, and after the Angels completing a sweep of them on Wednesday, the team is now one game behind the Padres, making the next series highly anticipated.
One person who has downplayed the importance of the upcoming slate against San Diego is Betts himself, who said that the team has to treat it as “another series in August.” Besides the division implications, the last time the two teams faced off, there was a benches-clearing situation as many batters were hit throughout the series with even the managers going face-to-face.
“It's big,” Betts said, according to ESPN. “But it kind of is what it is. We can't make it more than what it is. It's another series in August. Obviously, we all know it's big and X, Y, and Z, but we can't make it that way. We have to just look at it as the same game as today and play our game and not try to get too high or too low.”
Dodgers' Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani speak on the current situation
While the Dodgers have lost the lead on the NL West for the time being, there's still an immense amount of time for the team to get it back with the Padres series being a prime opportunity to do so. However, it doesn't help that they're coming off on the worst end of a sweep to the Angels.
“I think we're constantly giving ourselves chances to win,” Betts said. “Right now, that's what we can ask for. Obviously, we'd love to win all these games, but it just wasn't in the cards, so we've just got to turn the page and get ready for San Diego.”
Los Angeles star Shohei Ohtani spoke on how he feels in losing the division lead and how the team is “doing everything that we can to try to right the ship.” Ohtani started the game on Wednesday and recorded 4.1 innings while he struck out seven batters, though he had four earned runs and allowed five hits.
“Obviously, it doesn't feel good to fall into second place and to lose a lot of these games,” Ohtani said, speaking through an interpreter. “We're doing everything in our power, having close meetings, doing everything that we can to try to right the ship. We just have to do a better job.”
The three-game series against San Diego starts on Friday night.
