Dodgers waste strong Tyler Glasnow start as offense once again fails to back up pitching

If the Dodgers thought that going back home after a rather disastrous road trip on the east coast would be the reset they needed to start winning again, they had another think coming. LA stumbled through a series with the Phillies and then barely snatched a sweep away from the Nationals in their series finale in Washington when the offense came through to back up a bad spot start from Landon Knack.

They stretched their winning streak to two when they returned to LA thanks to a fantastic start from Yoshinobu Yamamoto against the Cubs, but there was still a worrying absence of the run support one would expect from a lineup like the Dodgers'.

Their second game against Chicago was one that the Dodgers want to but can't soon forget. Roki Sasaki pitched five strong innings, but the offense refused to score a single run in support. Ben Casparius and Luis García gave up 10 runs after Sasaki and the Dodgers were forced to put their first position player on the mound. Miguel Rojas gave up five more runs while the rest of the lineup failed to get more than a single hit off of the Cubs bullpen.

The series finale featured even more strong starting pitching, this time from Tyler Glasnow, but the lineup — once again — could not cobble together a win for him. The Cubs put up four runs to the Dodgers' two, handing LA their third straight series loss after opening the season 8-0.

Dodgers fail to back up Tyler Glasnow's bounce back start, lose third straight series to Cubs

Glasnow got his first quality start of the year, going six inning and giving up two runs, both on solo homers, while striking out seven batters. The Dodgers managed to match both of those runs by the bottom of the sixth, with even Max Muncy getting in on the action with a sac fly to score Michael Conforto for just his third RBI of the year.

But the usually untouchable Blake Treinen faltered against Cubs young gun Pete Crow-Armstrong, giving him his second home run of the night, and Alex Vesia didn't have his best stuff either; he gave up a ground-rule double to Kyle Tucker (after replay review), threw a wild pitch that moved Tucker to third, and then gave up an RBI single to Nico Hoerner.

The top of the Dodgers' lineup was basically AWOL. Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Tommy Edman, and Toescar Hernández went 2-15 with three strikeouts and the lineup left eight men on base.

Something's just not clicking here for the Dodgers, and it's dropped them to third in the NL West behind their two biggest rivals, the Padres and Giants. If their next series against the Rockies is what they need to get their mojo back, even if it'll probably be the Dodgers punching way, way down, then they should punch away.