LOS ANGELES -- On a sweltering, 103-degree day, the Guardians’ bats again went ice cold.

The Guardians failed to record a single extra-base hit and were shut out in a 4-0 loss to the Dodgers at Dodger Stadium on Sunday afternoon. Cleveland dropped the three-game series with the loss and now leads Kansas City by just 2 1/2 games in the American League Central standings.

It was the fourth time the Guardians have been shut out in their last 20 games. They are batting .230 as a team in that stretch dating back to Aug. 18, the seventh-lowest batting average in MLB in that time.

“I think that's baseball,” said outfielder Will Brennan, who made his first start of the year batting leadoff. “We're going to have stretches [where] we're going to murder teams, and then we're going to have stretches where we get shut out. … If we don't get on base and we don't execute our plans, we're gonna get shut out.”

The Guardians went 0-for-20 with runners in scoring position during their three-game series against the Dodgers. That included an 0-for-5 showing in the series finale.

“Got things going at times, just didn't get a big hit,” manager Stephen Vogt said. “I mean, we've been swinging the bats really well, and [three] games isn’t going to get us down.”

The Guardians had just six hits, all singles, and advanced only one runner past second base. Dodgers right-hander Jack Flaherty needed just 92 pitches to complete 7 1/3 scoreless innings, and Michael Kopech and Evan Phillips finished off the shutout.

Flaherty, who began the season with AL Central rival Detroit, improved to 2-1 with an 1.07 ERA in four starts against Cleveland this year.

“He's always had that fastball command, and it's whether or not he had the breaking ball and we were chasing him down,” Brennan said. “Unfortunately, he just got us today. It stinks that it's the fourth time, but hopefully we get him a fifth time.”

Tanner Bibee navigated the blistering temperatures to pitch five solid innings with four hits and two runs allowed, three walks and four strikeouts for the Guardians. The 103 degrees at first pitch tied for the hottest game-time temperature in Dodger Stadium history.

Bibee surrendered an RBI single to Will Smith in the fourth inning to break a scoreless tie but worked out of a bases-loaded, one-out jam to escape further damage. His only big mistake came in the fifth, when he left an 83.6 mph changeup floating at the top of the zone that Shohei Ohtani crushed off the facade of the top deck in right field for a Statcast-projected 450-foot home run.

“[It was supposed to be] down and away,” Bibee said. “Bad pitch, and he hit it. I mean, a lot of guys do that in this league. If I execute that pitch, it's probably a rollover or maybe a swing and a miss. Just didn't execute it.”

Even so, the outing was an encouraging one for Bibee given his previous struggles with hydration and cramps. He has battled cramps throughout the summer, including leaving his start early on July 24 against the Tigers, but was able to stay strong through 94 pitches against the Dodgers. His final pitch of the day was a 95.9 mph fastball he blew past Freddie Freeman for a swinging strikeout.

“My last two starts, I think mentally, [I’m] not getting too amped up,” Bibee said. “I feel like I was throwing every pitch as hard as I could. I think the last two games I've been able to control myself a little more, feel a little more zen-ish from the mound.”

It was all for naught, though, with the Guardians’ offense neutralized. Flaherty retired 12 straight between the fourth and eighth innings before Tyler Freeman’s one-out single ended the skid. The Guardians briefly managed to threaten in the ninth by putting runners on first and second and no outs against Phillips, but José Ramírez grounded into a double play and Lane Thomas struck out swinging to end it.

“We've been really good as of late,” Vogt said. “We can pick out any game we want and say we're good or bad. And so, for us, we stay the course.”