The Dodgers get Mookie Betts back on Monday night, and they need him. Los Angeles opens a four-game series against the Giants at Dodger Stadium with Betts available for all four games after missing the earlier matchup because of a strained oblique, and the home team is trying to steady an offense that has slipped from its early-season pace.
That is what gives this giants vs dodgers series its edge. Three weeks ago, San Francisco took 2 out of 3 in San Francisco and embarrassed the Dodgers, who were 16-6 before that set and averaging 6 runs per game. Since then, they are 8-10 and scoring around 4 runs a night, a drop that has turned a commanding start into a stretch where every inning feels like a referendum.
The raw numbers explain why the conversation has changed so quickly. The Dodgers were at a 103 wRC+ since April 17th, then sat at 98 wRC+ in the span just after the Giants' series. Shohei Ohtani's wRC+ over the past few weeks was 89, a figure that underscores how much the offense has leaned on others while one of its biggest names has looked ordinary by his standards. Betts had the worst offensive season of his career in 2025, and his return matters because the Dodgers have not been able to assume production from the top of the order.
There have been bright spots in the meantime. Alex Freeland emerged during the Dodgers' recent stretch, Max Muncy remained reliable and Kyle Tucker got hot, giving the club enough support to keep the lineup from flatlining completely. But the larger story is that the Dodgers are still sorting out what kind of team they are after the Giants series and a split in four games at Coors Field just before that. The earlier loss in San Francisco looks important, but it was not the only reason the lineup cooled.
The frustration is that the timing keeps getting blurred. The Giants swept away some of the confidence the Dodgers had built, but their recent struggles should be traced as much to the Rockies and Betts' injury as to San Francisco's two wins. That matters because the Giants themselves are hardly a clean measuring stick: they are an ailing franchise dealing with roster changes and uncertainty around pitching changes, which makes it hard to know whether that three-week-old result was the start of something real or just another sharp turn in a messy season.
For Los Angeles, May 11th is not a date for patience. Betts is back, the lineup has a chance to reset, and the Dodgers are staring at a series that could either confirm the slide or make the San Francisco loss look like a brief detour. The only question worth carrying out of the first pitch is whether this is the night the offense starts to resemble the one that opened 16-6, or whether that version is already in the rearview mirror.
