Roberts ‘wouldn’t have expected’ Dodgers to be in 2nd place

Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts didn’t envision his club sitting in second place in the NL West in mid-August.

However, that’s exactly where the Dodgers find themselves after losing 6-5 to the Los Angeles Angels on Wednesday to drop all six games of the Freeway Series this season. The defending World Series champions were the favorites to repeat after a huge offseason and led the division by nine games July 3, but they’ve gone 12-21 since to fall one game behind the San Diego Padres.

“We put ourselves in this spot,” manager Dave Roberts said postgame, according to Sonja Chen of MLB.com. “But no, I wouldn’t have expected us to be in second place right now.”

Shohei Ohtani allowed four earned runs with seven strikeouts over 4 1/3 innings and added an RBI triple against his former team Wednesday. He isn’t happy about where the Dodgers are in the standings either.

“Obviously, it doesn’t feel good to fall into second place and to lose a lot of these games,” Ohtani said through his interpreter. “We’re doing everything in our power, having meetings, doing everything that we can to try to right the ship. We just have to do a better job.”

The Dodgers host the Padres for a three-game series starting Friday. The two clubs finish their season series with another three contests in San Diego on Aug. 22-24.

“I think that we’ve clearly dominated the division in the last decade,” Roberts said. “Geographically speaking, winning a division, I think that they’re trying to overtake us. … That certainly brings out emotion. They got us a few years ago in the postseason and that was something, and we got them (last year).”

Los Angeles defeated San Diego in five games during last year’s NLDS en route to the title.

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