LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani has not played in six of the last seven games, and is being placed on the injured list. Freddie Freeman missed two games in the last week and was the designated hitter for another game as he nurses a right knee issue. The Dodgers began their homestand with two frustrating losses to the middling Cardinals before finally found their way, ripping off seven straight wins.
After below-average offense as a team for two full months in July and August, the Dodgers scored 58 runs
in nine games on the homestand, averaging 6.4 per game and they scored at least five runs seven times in the nine games.
They did all this despite suffering through an 0-for-24 stretch with runners in scoring position over the final two games against St. Louis. The Dodgers nearly got swept, with Freeman’s first-inning home run on September 2 the only hit with a runner in scoring position until the ninth inning of September 3 when Teoscar Hernández doubled home two, turning a deficit into a walk-off win.
The Dodgers made up for it by thriving with runners in scoring position against the Nationals and Reds, fueling two sweeps, hitting .288/.397/.577 but more importantly earning 63 such plate appearances in the six games, averaging 10.5 per contest.
The hitting was quite timely, with a three-run home run by Tommy Edman in the seventh inning on Saturday, a Mookie Betts three-run homer in the eighth inning on Sunday, and a three-run home run in the sixth inning by Hernández on Monday. The first two turned deficits into wins, and Hernández’s home run on Monday blew open a close game.
Coupled with Freeman’s blast on September 2, the Dodgers’ four three-run home runs on the homestand matched their total for all of August, covering 27 games.
All that timely hitting gave way to pure bulk in the homestand finale on Wednesday, with the Dodgers exploding for nine runs in the first four innings in a 14-1 rout of the Reds.
Blowout wins are the hallmark of good teams, and the Dodgers led the majors with 25 such wins (decided by five or more runs) through the end of June, but only had two such wins in July and two more wins in August. Wednesday was their first blowout win of September, and was the first time the Dodgers led by five runs before the eighth inning since August 17 at Coors Field.
Hernández began his hot streak with a two-run home to to help the Dodgers win their last game of August, in Detroit, and has recaptured his old swing with a 10-game hitting streak during which he has 18 hits in 35 at-bats (.514) with six extra-base hits and 14 RBI.
Betts thrived on the homestand, hitting .375/.421/.750 with three home runs, three doubles, 10 runs scored and 13 driven in over eight games.
Betts has scored a run in nine straight games, and Hernández has driven in a run in seven straight. Both are the longest streaks by a Dodger in 2026.
We knew the Dodgers’ schedule in September wasn’t daunting, and so far the results have been there, going 7-2 with their longest win streak of the season.
