It only seems the Dodgers have been searching for offense forever

It’s April 13 and already you’re tired of it. And just think, only 152 games to go!

Yet there it is, stark and unwanted and unwilling to slip away: The Dodgers cannot hit.

The world’s most expensive lineup is barely hitting better than the depleted Miami Marlins, which we are required to still call a major league team.

It would be so much easier to write this off as some early season apparition, if it didn’t feel like we’d seen it all before. Like pretty much the entire time down the stretch last year after the blockbuster trade that brought Adrian Gonzalez & Co. over.

The offensive numbers are pretty much universally bleak for the Dodgers. There are only 30 teams in the majors and the Dodgers rank 23rd in hits, 24th in total bases, tied for 28th in runs and 29th in RBIs. And it should be mentioned, 28th in hitting with runners in scoring position (.148).

They are eighth in on-base percentage, so there is that. But thus far, getting runners on is a long ways from translating to getting them in.

Hanley Ramirez is injured and out, but Carl Crawford is healthy and killing the ball. Gonzalez is hitting more like he was expected to. A huge drain has been the Justin Sellers-Luis Cruz combo on the left side of the infield, but that doesn’t figure to change until sometime near the end of next month when Ramirez returns. Unless you’re counting on the rebirth of Juan Uribe.

In the course of the season, these things tend to even out for a good-hitting team like the Dodgers are supposed to be. Not like a team averaging 2.7 runs per game. That would be easier to accept if we hadn’t seen this play out last September.

But there’s enough quality there to feel fairly certain it will not continue. Only right now, it’s harder to believe it.

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