The Giants and Dodgers meet again this week in Los Angeles, and the bigger name is back in the lineup. Mookie Betts will play all four games for the Dodgers, giving them a needed reset as they try to shake off a stretch that has left their offense looking far less imposing than it did in April.

That matters because the Dodgers were 16-6 before their series against the Rockies and were scoring about 6 runs per game. Since then, they are 8-10 and averaging around 4 runs per game. Since April 17th, they have sat 10th in offense with a team wRC+ of 103, and after the Giants series that number fell to 98, good for 16th. Betts, 33 years old, had been sidelined with a strained oblique, and his return gives Los Angeles a chance to stabilize a lineup that has not looked like itself.

The recent history between these teams is part of the reason this series draws attention. Last month, the Giants took two out of three games from the Dodgers, a result that can be read as a turning point only if the rest of the month is ignored. The source framing that earlier series says the real damage to Los Angeles should be credited to the Rockies and Betts’ injury, not the Giants alone. Before venturing to San Francisco, the Dodgers split four games in Coors Field, and that is where the slump took clearer shape.

There is also a wider tension on both sides. Shohei Ohtani has managed an 89 wRC+ over the past few weeks, a sign that even the Dodgers’ biggest star has not fully carried the offense through the slowdown. The Giants, meanwhile, have been dealing with their own disruption after trading a Gold Glover and demoting former veterans they had planned all offseason to count on throughout the year. Their manager also was not clear about pitching changes, leaving more questions than certainty as this rivalry heads into another four-game set.

For the Dodgers, the next step is simple enough to state and hard enough to do: use Betts’ return to pull the lineup back toward the version that opened the season so strongly. For the Giants, the challenge is just as plain. They have already shown they can win this matchup, but this week in Los Angeles will test whether that was a brief edge or the start of something more lasting.