LOS ANGELES — Freddie Freeman was the most disgruntled .290 hitter in baseball for most of the season’s first two months, searching for a swing that would satisfy his high standards.
He has emerged from the gloom in June and is batting .357 this month after stroking the go-ahead RBI single in the eighth inning to give the Dodgers a 4-3, come-from-behind victory over the Kansas City Royals on Friday night.
The Dodgers’ offense has been all or nothing over the past month. It was nothing for four innings against Royals starter Cole Ragans on Friday.
The left-hander retired the first 10 Dodgers in order before giving up a hit – a single through the right side by Shohei Ohtani.
Dodgers starter Gavin Stone nearly matched that, retiring eight of the first nine Royals batters and picking off the one baserunner he allowed on a third-inning single.
But Stone gave up a single and a walk with one out in the fourth inning then made a big mistake. He rolled a first-pitch slider over the heart of the plate to Salvador Perez. Perez crushed it 437 feet deep into the left field pavilion for a three-run home run.
It was the only mistake for Stone, who gave up just one more hit after Perez’s fourth-inning homer while completing seven innings for the fourth time in his past nine starts
The Dodgers scored seven runs in the sixth inning on Tuesday against the Texas Rangers, hitting four home runs in the inning. Over their next 24 innings (through the fourth inning Friday night), they managed just four runs on 13 hits.
Andy Pages beat out an infield single and the Dodgers’ offense jerked back to life when Ragans busted Miguel Rojas inside with a 3-and-1 fastball. Rojas turned on it, sending a fly ball down the left field line that curled just inside the foul pole for a two-run home run.
Rojas has been a pleasant surprise offensively this season. Chris Taylor has been – something else entirely.
But he got a changeup below the knees from Ragans and golfed it into the left field pavilion two batters after Rojas’ homer, tying the score at 3-3.
It was only Taylor’s second extra-base hit in 105 plate appearances that have produced just 10 hits of any kind. It was his first home run since last Sept. 7, a stretch of 165 homer-less plate appearances in between.
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Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. nipped one potential Dodgers rally in the bud with an outstanding defensive play in the seventh inning. After Teoscar Hernandez drew a leadoff walk against Ragans, Pages blooped one toward left field. Witt ran it down with his back turned toward home plate, caught it over his shoulder, spun and threw to second baseman Nick Loftin who relayed it to first to double off Hernandez.
Instead, the Dodgers put together the winning rally in the eighth. Mookie Betts singled off the glove of third baseman Maikel Garcia and went to second on a wild pickoff attempt by Royals reliever Will Smith. Ohtani popped out for the second out of the inning.
That brought up Freeman to face Smith – a matchup of teammates from the Atlanta Braves’ 2021 World Series-winning team. Freeman got a 1-and-0 slider from Smith off the plate away and stroked it into center field for a single, scoring Betts with the deciding run.
More to come on this story.