Hostility awaits for the Dodgers starting Friday when they set out to conquer outlying territory.
Inside the oldest ballpark in the National League, Chicago Cubs fans will be bundled up to protect themselves against the chill while supplying their own frosty welcome.
Animosity toward the Dodgers is nothing new, but this is now the team that committed more than a billion dollars in future salary during the offseason and added the prize free-agent treasure this winter to a team that has made the playoffs in 11 consecutive years.
Well versed in postseason atmospheres, the Dodgers will see them all season long starting with their visit to Wrigley Field this weekend.
“I think everybody is ready and everybody knows what that tension is going to be, not only here but outside of L.A.,” Dodgers newcomer Teoscar Hernandez said after the Dodgers completed a 6-1 homestand while improving to 7-2 to start the season.
And just in time for a game in an away ballpark – outside of their two neutral-site games in March at Seoul, South Korea – is the arrival of the particular long-ball threat the Dodgers envisioned. Shohei Ohtani ended his eight-game homerless drought with a signature towering blast Wednesday in a victory over the rival San Francisco Giants.
But even with the 430-foot home run, Ohtani has a .432 slugging percentage, well below his .554 career mark and his baseball-best .654 number last season.
Mookie Betts and Hernandez have carried the offense early with a combined nine home runs and 21 RBIs over the first nine games. But Freddie Freeman, Will Smith and Max Muncy have just two combined home runs, while the bottom three spots in the order are batting a combined .250 with just three extra-base hits.
The Dodgers’ Death Star still isn’t fully operational and yet the team has at least five runs in all nine games, a franchise record that is approaching the MLB record of 13 such games to start a season set in 1932 by the New York Yankees.
“You’re never gonna have everyone lined up or synced up all at once,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, whose team is averaging 6.3 runs per game. “But even right now, with some guys that are kind of scuffling or trying to find their swings, we’re still putting up five runs per game.
“I think it’s big for our starting pitching, and it’s big for our morale knowing that we can score early, we can score late. We’ve seen some good arms, and we’re still finding ways to put up crooked numbers, which is huge.”
More crooked numbers could be on the way, with the Cubs sporting a 4.19 staff ERA and the Dodgers holding a 4.06 mark, with both numbers in the bottom half of baseball.
The numbers guaranteed to be low are on the thermometer, with highs between 44 and 49 degrees awaiting on the weekend and a chance of rain approaching 70% Sunday.
They are not the most ideal conditions for creating offense but that is the point. This offense has been designed to produce run-scoring chances amid any opposing force.
Ohtani’s early power drought was not as dire as it seemed. The start to any particular season has a way of skewing performance standards.
It might have been a career-long run of nine games at the outset before Ohtani went deep, but he has gone a full 24 games without a home run from the end of the 2022 season through the first two games of 2023.
His eight-game drought to begin this season was part of an 18-game run without a home run going back to last campaign. But he also had an 18-game homer drought in the 2019 season when he had just six extra-base hits.
Ohtani goes through power funks on occasion. It’s just that his baseball-best 11.3 home runs per at-bat last season made it seem like he doesn’t.
Roberts has been asked to put on his psychologist hat for the past two weeks in order to assess Ohtani’s mental state from his early-season performance and how it relates to expectation, the start of a run with a new group of teammates and the financial scandal that enveloped Ohtani at the start of the season.
Now that Ohtani’s first home run in a Dodgers uniform has arrived, Roberts was asked again to get into the mind of his new power hitter.
“I think there’s something to the human nature part of wanting to get off to a good start with a new team, and obviously with the contract and things like that,” Roberts said. “But I think most important is that we’re winning baseball games. I think that’s something that helps the transition or the weight that you might feel.
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“As long as we keep winning, (we know) that he’s gonna perform at some point in time, and (Wednesday) was a really good step.”
By his own admission, Ohtani is feeling a sense of relief now, ready to take on the road trip and to deal with whatever he might encounter next.
“My impression was it was getting a little longer than my expectation,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton, about not clearing the outfield wall until the final game of the season’s third series. “During those situations, it’s easy to become anxious. I was overall relieved.”
