Cardinals 7, Dodgers 1: Dodgers get the result they played for

Carlos Frias turned in an admirable effort with a tired bullpen behind him, going 6.2 innings and being pushed (for him) to 107 pitches. Frias’ troubles started in the top of the third, when with two outs Justin Turner made an error on a tough fliner that short-hopped him. Three consecutive singles later, and the Dodgers were down 2-0 in a heartbeat. A Matt Holliday sac fly and Jason Heyward two-run single in the top of the fifth put the Dodgers in a five-run deficit and the game was essentially out of reach.

But why was it out of reach? Well, while the offense did have nine hits, it was a quiet day, and partially because the Dodgers choose for it to be. The team threatened in the bottom of the fifth, putting runners on the corners with one out before Frias questionably hit for himself. He bunted to advance the trail runner, and hot-hitting Joc Pederson struck out looking to end the threat. In the bottom of the sixth they threatened again, loading the bases on three consecutive singles with one out, but only scoring one after an Alex Guerrero sac fly and a Jimmy Rollins ground out.

All in all, this was the result that was expected given the decision to basically not give too many shits about scoring in the fifth in exchange for saving the bullpen a couple innings. Funny thing is they ended up going with a sacrificial lamb out of the pen anyway, pitching Daniel Coulombe for 2.1 innings as he gave up two additional runs. I still don’t really understand the decision to essentially give up since they were a couple hits away from a tie game at one point with a few innings to play, but this was a deserved result in no small part because they resigned themselves to it.