PHOENIX — The Los Angeles Dodgers are among the National League leaders in RBIs and runs from their outfielders, but having four productive players for three positions is not quite the luxury it might appear.
“It’s been a different luxury,” Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said a smile. “I don’t know if I’d call it a luxury. It is not fun luxury, but it is a luxury. Somebody is always not happy, but the one thing (is), we’re getting good production. As a team standpoint it’s kinda worked, but individually I’m sure guys … it’s not necessarily working.”
The Dodgers led the National League with a .356 on-base percentage and were second
with a .493 slugging percentage. They have 70 runs and 80 RBIs.
Right fielder Yasiel Puig has been in the lineup on a daily basis the last several weeks, based on his production. Puig had his career-long 16-game hitting streak broken in a 5-3 loss to Arizona on Sunday; he hit .391 with five doubles, six homers and 21 RBIs in the streak.
Left-handed-hitting left fielder Carl Crawford and center fielder Andre Ethier were in the lineup against Arizona right-hander Josh Collmenter on Sunday, and both, too, are hitting well.
Crawford has hit safely in 11 of his last 12 games and had homered in his previous two games before going 1-for-2 Sunday. He is hitting .450 with three homers and seven RBIs since May 3, adding 89 points to his batting average. Ethier is hitting .333 with five doubles and six RBIs in 15 May games.
The odd man out of the staring lineup Sunday was right-handed hitting Matt Kemp, although he entered as a pinch-hitter for Crawford. He, too, has been on a roll, hitting .365 with seven multi-hit games since May 3.
“Production-wise it is working, but guys just are not used to it,” Mattingly said. “Each guy, I think, is different in the way they handle it. One guy may be outwardly upset, other guys have been a little bit … Carl is going to handle it his way, Andre is going to handle it his way. I know none of them necessarily like it.”
Mattingly said performance will dictate playing time moving forward. Puig has 177 plate appearances and Kemp has 149. Ethier has 133 and Crawford has 126.
“Yasiel was in this boat, too, early in the season, and he’s basically just separated himself from the pack, right?” Mattingly said. “You just look at everybody’s else’s numbers. I really could have (Scott) Van Slyke arguing with me that he should be playing more. I’d like to have somebody to separate themselves, but looking at their numbers there really hasn’t been true separation.”