Dodgers: Seager and Taylor Must Ignite LA’s Struggling Offense

As the Dodgers head south to battle the San Diego Padres, they are in search of some consistency with their struggling bats.

As the Dodgers currently sit at 5-9 after Sunday’s win, the primary cause of their slow start has been an offense that is struggling to consistently produce runs.  The Dodgers currently rank 19th in runs scored, and 18th in hits out of all thirty major league teams.  Sure there have been some bad starts lately by Maeda and Hill, but the offense has struggled to score runs consistently which isn’t going to help the starting pitchers.

One big reason the Dodgers offense is struggling is due to slow starts by Chris Taylor and Corey Seager.  Seager is currently hitting .200 even and Chris Taylor is sitting at .230.  It was a given that the Dodgers offense could struggle without the consistent bat of Justin Turner in the lineup, but nobody expected their offense to miss Turner this much.  Whether Seager’s slow start is due to his elbow injury or just bad luck (.222 BABIP), the sooner Seager heats up the better the Dodgers offense will produce.

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For Chris Taylor, not many predicted an offensive regression for him but it is certainly possible given that his BABIP was over 350 last season.  This season it is sitting at 256 entering Monday’s game so Taylor has not found many holes when he has put the ball in play.  Taylor’s luck is bound to turn around, he has a big enough sample size now to show that last season was not a fluke, and he had a very strong spring.

Sunday was a good example of how good the Dodgers offense can be when Taylor and Seager are driving in runs and making things happen with their bats.  On Sunday against Godley who was on a hot streak, Seager and Taylor accounted for five of the Dodgers seven runs in the game.  Taylor homered, drove in three runs, and scored once.  Seager may have only recorded one hit but he came into score and made it two runs scored and three runs knocked in by Seager and Taylor combined.  That is the kind of production the Dodgers are going to need from their top two hitters in order to make up for the absence of Justin Turner.

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Matt Kemp and Cody Bellinger have been hitting in the heart of the Dodgers lineup and both are hitting exactly 300 or better.  The problem is that Corey Seager and Chris Taylor have not been getting many hits so most of Kemp and Bellinger’s hits have not done any damage.  The offensive catalysts for the Dodger offense are Seager and Taylor, they are a big reason why the Dodgers won over 100 games last season.  If the Dodgers are going to reach a hundred wins again, they are going to need the bats of Seager and Taylor to start producing consistently.