For most of the night, the Dodgers looked like a team that had forgotten how to hit with anyone in scoring position. Katie Woo laid out just how bad it had gotten in real time — 0-for-8 with RISP through eight innings and 10 runners stranded, with St. Louis clinging to a 2-1 lead behind reliever George Soriano, who loaded the bases before striking out Dalton Rushing to escape the eighth.
Cardinals reliever George Soriano walked the bases full, but struck out Dalton Rushing to keep this a one-run game heading to the ninth. More of the same for the Dodgers offense. They’re 0-for-8 tonight with RISP and have left 10 runners on. It’s 2-1 St. Louis.
The bigger picture was uglier than just one game. Woo followed up with the number that summed up the Dodgers' whole week: 1-for-their-last-26 with runners in scoring position, and 2-for-18 with the bases loaded. That's not a slump, that's a full-blown offensive identity crisis for a lineup that's supposed to be the scariest in baseball.
Dodgers hitters: 1-for-last 26 with RISP 2-for-last 18 with the bases loaded.
Then Teoscar Hernandez ended it. Riley O'Brien got two quick strikes on him in the bottom of the ninth before Hernandez fought off pitch after pitch, eventually turning around a sinker and lining it into the left-center field gap for a two-run, walk-off double. Dodgers win, 3-2. Series over, sweep avoided.
TEOSCAR AND THE DODGERS WALK OFF THE CARDINALS!
Woo captured exactly why the moment hit so hard: "The Dodgers have been searching for a hit like that for weeks. So has Teoscar Hernandez, who walks this off with a two-run double and is as fired up as we've seen all season." It wasn't just a team snapping out of a funk — it was Hernandez personally answering for a stretch where the whole lineup had gone cold around him.
The win comes at a delicate moment for the Dodgers. Shohei Ohtani sat out the finale, a planned rest day after he'd been playing through lingering right biceps and neck soreness that manager Dave Roberts has called day-to-day. With their best player out of the lineup, it was Hernandez and the rest of the offense who had to grind through a game where nothing was falling — until, suddenly, it did.
Teoscar Hernández walks it off! (Via: @MLB)
Cardinals beat writer Derrick Goold summed up the flip side: St. Louis had this one, and lost it on the final swing. For a Dodgers team that's supposed to be built for October, avoiding a sweep with a walk-off is a nice story for a Thursday night — but 1-for-26 with runners in scoring position is the number that actually needs fixing before the games start mattering more.