Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers fell to the Pirates this afternoon 6-5 in another frustrating affair, not only because of the team’s performance, but also because they lost four replay reviews.
This was another pitching match-up that was supposed to be more like a duel than a shootout between offenses. Since coming off the DL and getting his knee right, Mat Latos had posted a 2.79 ERA in eight starts, while Francisco Liriano entered with a 2.92 ERA on the season. Both starters didn’t last beyond four innings and they gave up a combined 10 runs.
Liriano lasted just three innings before exiting with what seemed like an injury or something to that effect. He gave up four runs on seven hits and two walks, while striking out four. Latos continued what was a disturbing trend as a Dodger en route to giving up six earned. In his 10 inning of work thus far in Blue, he’s struck out only one batter, and that allows for a ton of potential hits. Sure enough, Latos only walked one, but gave up seven hits, including the back breaking homer to Liriano himself.
So that happened.
Naturally, after those dumpster fire of outings, both the Dodgers and Pirates bullpens entered and immediately started throwing up zeroes. Joe Blanton, JOE FREAKING BLANTON, Joakim Soria, and Tony Watson shut the Dodgers down for five innings, and Pedro Baez and Luis Avilan did the same to the Pirates over three.
Then Joel Peralta, the human white flag, came in to get basically the only 1-2-3 inning of the game, because of course he did. The Dodgers followed by mounting a rally against Mark Melancon, who entered with a 1.41 ERA. Howie Kendrick, Adrian Gonzalez, and Scott Van Slyke led off the inning by smoking the ball, but only two fell in for hits. Kendrick got on via single and SVS doubled past a diving Andrew McCutchen to cut the lead to one.
Things got weird at that point, as Yasiel Puig worked a 3-2 count before grounding out to Jung Ho Kang, who hesitated in order to keep SVS at second. His throw appeared to pull Sean Rodriguez off the bag, and Puig was ruled safe on an error. However, upon review, that was overturned despite the call on the field, which is how the Dodgers usually get screwed.
https://twitter.com/ChadMoriyama/status/630161650931204096
Somebody seriously needs to define what the grounds for overturning a call is in the off-season. It’s ridiculous.
Joc Pederson followed with a walk to put runners on first and second for Yasmani Grandal, but the Dodgers couldn’t cash in once again, as he went down on strikes to end the game. Sigh.
—–
At least Puig did this.
