CINCINNATI -- After Dodgers third baseman Kiké Hernández threw out Santiago Espinal for the second out in the bottom of the sixth inning Sunday, shortstop Mookie Betts trotted off the field, thinking it was the final out of the frame.

The way the Dodgers have been playing of late, perhaps Betts was just trying to forget the whole weekend.

Call it bad luck or just a bad matchup or a little of both -- the Dodgers simply can’t get anything going right now. That was readily apparent again Sunday in a 4-1 loss to the Reds at Great American Ball Park.

The Dodgers broke up the shutout in the ninth when Shohei Ohtani lined a 113.5 mph bullet off the glove of Spencer Steer at first and Freddie Freeman doubled him home, snapping a team-wide 0-for-22 drought with runners in scoring position.

Freeman isn’t concerned about the two-week slump extending indefinitely.

“It's May. It's baseball. We play 100 [more] games,” said Freeman. “Two weeks ago, we were winning every game. So you go through these stretches throughout the course of the year and maybe we'll start [Monday in New York].”

In their first five-game losing streak since dropping six straight from April 8-13, 2019, the Dodgers scored just 11 runs total. Since starting May on a seven-game winning streak, the Dodgers have dropped nine of 16.

“When you're not hitting, it certainly seems lifeless,” manager Dave Roberts said. “I know it’s not from care and preparation. But the bottom line is it's about results, and we're not getting them right now.

“I think everyone in that clubhouse understands that. We’ve just got to keep going. No team is gonna feel sorry for you. This is a grown man's game. You’ve got to pull up your bootstraps and find a way to figure it out. So there's really nothing I can kind of detect. When you get good pitch to hit, you’ve got to hit them, and that's kind of the crux of it. But they outplayed us in the series and won three.”

Roberts is clearly playing psychologist right now, even for a team as talented as his NL West-leading club. After Yohan Ramírez hit two more batters in the eighth (four in two games this weekend), Roberts went to the mound to console, comfort and embrace his reliever, who then retired the final batter of the inning.

“You just see the player and you kind of feel for what he's got going on in his brain and his heart,” said Roberts. “I never threw a Major League inning, but sometimes I’m sure you feel like you're on an island. And so I wanted to show that we are all behind him.”

The Dodgers’ slumping bats were no match for a pitcher who has had their number.

Nick Martinez came on in relief of lefty Brent Suter, who faced three batters in the first, retiring two.

The Cincinnati right-hander induced a sharp line drive from Teoscar Hernández for an out, ending the first with Betts on second. It was the hardest-hit ball (103 mph exit velocity) the Dodgers would register off Martinez.

Martinez faced the minimum until Hernández doubled with two outs in the fourth. But Andy Pages struck out, and Martinez retired his final four batters to complete 4 1/3 scoreless.

Martinez has a lifetime 1.46 ERA in 11 appearances (one start) against the Dodgers. This season, Martinez has blanked L.A. over 9 1/3 innings, allowing just two hits while striking out seven.

As for Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the right-hander had little margin of error.

After tossing a pair of scoreless innings, the Reds got to the right-hander for four in the third, thanks to something that has eluded the Dodgers of late -- clutch, two-out hitting with runners in scoring position.

Jonathan India drove a Yamamoto 96 mph sinker to the hole on the right side for a two-run single. Nick Martini followed that up by fighting off a 96 mph four-seam fastball on the inside corner and blooping it just in front of Hernández in left for two more runs.

“I think it's more about my own pitching before I start talking about getting run support, particularly in that third inning, because I really have to get through that inning and hold them to zero,” Yamamoto said through an interpreter. “From the get-go, I was feeling pretty good today. However, at that moment, I couldn’t throw my best pitches.”

Yamamoto was charged with four runs and six hits over five innings, striking out eight and walking two ahead of a 69-minute rain delay.