The scariest part about the Los Angeles Dodgers isn't what they do when they're healthy. It's what they do when they are broken.
On Monday night in Sacramento, left fielder Teoscar Hernández stood by his locker, freshly activated from a month-long stint on the injured list with a hamstring strain. He looked at the National League West standings, saw his team holding a massive double-digit lead, and smiled.
"I don't think they really need me in the lineup," Hernández told reporters.
He was being humble, but he was also completely right. While Hernández was recovering from his May 29 injury, the Dodgers didn't just survive; they thrived, widening their division lead to 11 games. But humble comments aside, Monday night's 9-4 thrashing of the Oakland Athletics proved that while Los Angeles might not need him to win the division, his return makes this offense an absolute nightmare to navigate.
The Dodgers didn't just win their opening game at Sutter Health Park. They threw an offensive party, hammering out 17 hits and three home runs in a display of pure, unadulterated depth.
The Gravity of Getting Teoscar Back
When Hernández went down at the end of May with a Grade 1 left hamstring strain, he was slashing .276 with seven home runs and 31 RBIs. He was a critical middle-of-the-order bat. Replacing that kind of production usually derails an offense. Instead, the Dodgers went 18-10 without him.
But inserting a healthy Hernández back into the fifth spot completely shifts how opposing pitchers have to approach this team. Manager Dave Roberts noted before the game that his presence fundamentally alters the "length" of the lineup. It stretches the margin of error for everyone else.
If you fight your way past Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, and Freddie Freeman, your reward is now a guy who just spent his rehab assignment hitting two-run homers in three straight games for Triple-A Oklahoma City.
The cascading impact was felt immediately against Oakland. In the second inning, Hernández and Kyle Tucker led off with back-to-back singles, setting up Max Muncy for an early RBI knock. It wasn't a home run that broke the game open early; it was the relentless, compounding pressure of one quality plate appearance after another.
Ohtani Turns Sacramento into a Home Away from Home
Monday night also offered a strange preview of what the Athletics' near future looks like in their temporary Sacramento home, and it isn't pretty for local pitching. Sutter Health Park is small. The ball travels. And when Shohei Ohtani comes to town, the crowd belongs to the Dodgers anyway.
Ohtani bounced back from a weird second-inning strikeout—where an Automatic Ball-Strike (ABS) challenge overturned a ball into a strike—by doing what he does best. He crushed his 18th home run of the year, a majestic three-run shot that triggered a roar usually reserved for Chavez Ravine.
Max Muncy followed later with his 17th homer of the year, and Andy Pages added a solo shot, his 16th.
By the time the dust settled, the Dodgers had collected 17 hits. Every single starter contributed to the noise. It was a stark reminder that while the baseball world spends its time obsessing over the top of the order, the bottom half can bury you just as fast.
Surviving the Pitching Chaos
What makes this 55-30 Dodgers run so ridiculous is that the offense is masking a pitching rotation held together by duct tape and hope.
Los Angeles currently has Tyler Glasnow, Blake Snell, and Edwin Díaz sidelined on the injured list. Most teams would plummet. The Dodgers just hand the ball to Eric Lauer and let the offense build a cushion.
Lauer wasn't perfect on Monday. He gave up a solo shot to Colby Thomas in the second and surrendered consecutive hits that briefly tied the game at 2-2. But he leaned on that 17-hit cushion, grinding through six innings, scattering nine hits, and allowing just three runs to secure a quality start.
It was exactly what the front office needed: a steady, veteran performance that saved the bullpen for later in the week. The win also put Dave Roberts at 999 career managerial victories, setting up a historic milestone for Tuesday night.
What This Means for October
Regular season wins against the Athletics in June don't win championships. The Dodgers know this better than anyone after their recent postseason exits.
But the template of Monday's win is exactly how you win in October. When you possess a lineup that features All-Stars hitting in the six and seven spots, you don't need your starting pitching to be heroic. You just need them to keep the ball in the yard and eat innings.
With catcher Will Smith still dealing with neck inflammation, this lineup isn't even at 100% capacity yet. That should terrify the rest of the National League. The Dodgers are already on pace to win the West by 20-plus games, and their pieces are finally starting to click back into place.
If you want to track where the Dodgers go from here, watch how they manage Hernández's workload over this 10-game stretch without a day off. The plan is to ease him in, starting him four or five times a week to protect that hamstring.
To see how the rest of the roster shapes up around this newly deepened lineup, keep an eye on these specific roster dynamics over the next fortnight:
- Monitor Tommy Edman's defensive positioning at second base, which will directly impact the daily playing time of veteran infielder Miguel Rojas.
- Track Kyle Tucker's hitting splits in the sixth spot now that Hernández is providing protection directly ahead of him in the order.
- Watch Eric Lauer's next scheduled start to see if he can replicate his high-strike percentage when pitching without an early run cushion.
