PHOENIX — It was the night the Dodgers were coldest offensively this year, that Freddie Freeman’s swing first started to get hot.
On April 25, when Paul Skenes and the Pittsburgh Pirates mowed through the Dodgers in a 3-0 shutout at Dodger Stadium, the veteran first baseman remembers something clicking in a sixth-inning at-bat, when he dumped a down-and-away splitter into center field for a base hit.
At the time, Freeman’s swing didn’t look like much, a seemingly nondescript single on a night the Dodgers generated little else against the reigning National League Rookie of the Year.