Dave Roberts didn’t mention Gavin Lux by name when discussing the Dodgers infield plans a few weeks ago.
Given the makeup of their roster, he didn’t need to.
When asked on July 3 about the potential of playing Mookie Betts at second base once Betts returns from a broken hand, Roberts was careful to make no guarantees.
Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto is confident he’ll return this season from a strained rotator cuff, but there’s a chance he might not be back.
“I’m gonna use as much time as possible [before making a decision],” Roberts said. “Because you have to appreciate the people that it could affect.”
No one, of course, stood to be affected as much as Lux. He had gotten all of his playing time this season at second base. And in the event Betts returned as the everyday second baseman, he seemed most poised to be squeezed out of playing time, given his disappointing numbers in his return from knee surgery last year.
“There’s no sense in me talking about,” Roberts said, “to potentially get into the psyche of another player.”
Roberts might not have addressed it publicly. But in the last couple of days, Lux has looked like a player motivated to change the narrative, following up a big performance Saturday with another highlight showing Sunday that keyed the Dodgers’ 9-6 win over the Boston Red Sox.
“Obviously, I don’t think it’s been any secret it’s been a little bit of a grind for me this year,” Lux said with a sigh of relief. “So yeah, just to get some results and some positive feedback, it definitely helps.”
In the first inning Sunday, Lux helped the Dodgers erase an early two-run deficit by lining an RBI double down the left-field line, collecting his third-straight extra-base hit after a home run and double in a Saturday night win.
Three innings later, Lux struck again, lifting an opposite-field home run to left that gave the Dodgers a 4-2 lead en route to their sweep-clinching victory at Dodger Stadium.
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1. Gavin Lux hits a solo home run in the fourth inning of the Dodgers’ win over the Red Sox on Sunday. 2. Lux celebrates as he crosses home plate following his home run. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
“I don’t think it’s really like a swing change or anything,” said Lux, whose three-for-four effort overall (he also stole a base) raised his batting average to .225 (tying his high mark on the year) and OPS to .609 (the highest it has been at any point this season).
“I’m just trying to be more aggressive, and when I get a decent pitch to hit put a good swing on it.”
On the whole, Lux’s numbers are still underwhelming. Two years removed from his breakout 2022 campaign — when he batted .276, had an above-league-average OPS+ and led the NL with seven triples — the 26-year-old has yet to consistently become a bottom-of-the-order sparkplug again, thanks in no small part to the torn ACL he suffered last spring.
At times, Roberts said, Lux has looked too passive at the plate, seemingly protecting his surgically repaired knee with “safe swings” that have taken the first four months of the campaign to overcome.
Lately, however, there have been signs his form is finally trending upward.
Since crossing the 150 at-bat threshold on May 31 — the marker Roberts wanted Lux to reach before making sweeping evaluations of his game — the infielder is batting .250 with six doubles, four homers, 15 RBIs and a .700 OPS in 31 games.
On the day he reached 10 years of MLB service time, Kiké Hernández helps lead the Dodgers to a 7-6 comeback victory over the Boston Red Sox in 11 innings.
His defense at second base, the position he moved back to this spring after defensive struggles at shortstop, has been superb.
And, even with Betts now just weeks away from a return, Lux’s ability to add bottom-of-the-order production remains crucial to the Dodgers’ top-heavy lineup.
“He’s fighting every day,” Roberts said. “I’ve praised him all year long about the defense, and now the bat is coming the way it has been. I think if you look at the last couple of weeks, the numbers are lining up. My eyes are lining up. I like what I see. And, you know, the confidence is certainly oozing from him.”
Lux wasn’t alone in leading the Dodgers to a series sweep of the Red Sox — a much-needed result for a club that had lost six of seven games entering last week’s All-Star break.
The Dodgers hit a season-high six home runs in all, with Freddie Freeman, Teoscar Hernández, Austin Barnes, Jason Heyward and Shohei Ohtani also going deep on a warm afternoon at Chavez Ravine.
Ohtani’s 473-foot blast in the fifth nearly cleared the roof above the right-field pavilion, his National League-leading 30th homer of the year leaving his teammates in awe as he rounded the bases.
“It sounded like a shotgun off his bat,” Lux said.
Added Barnes, who hit his first home run of the season the at-bat prior: “I was still thinking about mine [and then] I just heard like a gunshot and everybody screaming.”
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1. Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani tosses his bat after hitting a 473-foot home run during the Dodgers’ win over the Red Sox on Sunday. 2. Ohtani celebrates with third base coach Dino Ebel after his solo home run. 3. Ohtani claps his hands as he reaches home plate after his home run in the fifth inning. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Echoed Roberts: “That’s just where people don’t go. Just really impressive. He does things, it seems like every night, that people just can’t do.”
On the mound, James Paxton bounced back from a two-run first-inning homer by Jarren Duran to pitch into the sixth, giving up just one more run in his longest start in more than a month. Daniel Hudson, meanwhile, got the save after closer Evan Phillips gave up three runs in the ninth (he’s given up nine earned runs in his last eight outings).
“I think just winning, coming back from behind to win a lot of these games [from] difficult situations, it really creates a lot of momentum for the team,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. “So hoping to continue that moving forward.”
Still, Lux’s sudden offensive explosion could have the biggest ramifications on the Dodgers’ long-term outlook.
If he stays hot, he could warrant continued at-bats against right-handed pitching, with Betts perhaps playing shortstop on those days once he returns (Betts was the Dodgers’ everyday shortstop before his hand fracture).
Lux could be needed more in the short term, as well, after shortstop Miguel Rojas exited Sunday’s game early with right forearm tightness.
Rojas didn’t think his injury was serious, attributing it to a one-handed, heavy-bat swing drill he has recently added to his routine in the batting cage. He won’t play Monday, Roberts said, but probably won’t need any medical imagining, either.
“Just going to come in tomorrow,” Rojas said, “and see how it feels when I throw.”
Lux’s resurgence could have trade deadline ramifications, too, as any continued struggles from him might have prompted the club to look for more infield help.
But the Dodgers had not yet lost faith in their former first-round draft pick. They’d been holding out hope that, at some point, he’d overcome his slow start to the year and be an important piece in their plans to contend for a World Series.
This weekend, Lux flashed long-awaited signs that level of play is still possible.
For the first time in a long time, he looked like someone who could still be a key cog in their lineup’s success.
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