Dodgers offense & the drive for 5

The Dodgers will need their offense to produce down the stretch, so it had to be somewhat satisfying to score five runs in Tuesday night's series opener, matching their total for the previous four games combined. The Dodgers look for more against the Reds on Wednesday night at Great American Ball Park.

Five runs is a pretty good number to reach for an offense in 2015, with the National League averaging 4.08 runs per game.

The Dodgers are 44-6 (.880) when scoring at least five runs, higher than the .794 winning percentage for the rest of baseball in those games.

The Dodgers also fare well when lowering the bar to four runs scored. They are 52-10 (.839) when scoring at least four runs, including 8-4 (.667) when scoring exactly four runs, both numbers well ahead of the rest of MLB (.744 and .591, respectively).

The Dodgers get a second crack at left-hander David Holmberg, starting for the Reds in the middle of the series. Holmberg allowed three runs and seven total runs in two innings of work on Aug. 15 at Dodger Stadium, with Yasiel Puig, Kiké Hernandez and Justin Turner taking him deep.

Turner hit another home run on Tuesday night, his second since returning from the disabled list, though he was 1-for-25 in between long balls.

The Dodgers are hitting .261/.338/.412 with a .327 wOBA against left-handed pitchers this season, leading the National League in on-base percentage, OPS (.750), wOBA, OPS+ (110) and wRC+ (110) and third in slugging against southpaws.

Against left-handed starting pitchers, the numbers are even better, with the Dodgers hitting .263/.340/.438 and southpaw starters putting up a 4.67 ERA.

But the Dodgers have scored five or more runs in just 10 of their 28 games (35.7 percent) against lefty starting pitchers, compared to 40 times in 96 games (41.7 percent) started by opposing right-handed pitchers.

If the Dodgers manage to score at least five runs on Wednesday, it would be the fifth time they have done so in back-to-back games since the All-Star break. The last time the Dodgers scored at least five runs in three straight games was May 10-12.

How ever many runs the Dodgers score on Wednesday, it will come in support of Brett Anderson, who has 13 quality starts in his last 17 outings, including exactly three runs in six innings in each of his last two starts. He was on the receiving end of the run support against Holmberg on Aug. 15.

On the season, Anderson gets the least run support among Dodgers starting pitchers, at 3.7 runs per start.

Game info

Time: 4:10 p.m.

TV: SportsNet LA