Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
Everything that happened today is secondary to one of the most ridiculous showings of arm strength, throwing accuracy, and athleticism we’ll ever see by Yasiel Puig.
Justin Turner is probably grimmacing here while applying the tag, but I choose to believe he’s smiling at having just witnessed ridiculousness.
Anyway, back to miserable reality. Scott Kazmir was painful to watch over his last two starts, as he surrendered 10 runs on 14 hits and five walks over just eight innings. As if to add insult to injury, his start today was at Coors Field, and now the Dodgers have lost three of his starts in a row as they fell 7-5 to the Rockies.
Probably not the best.
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After seemingly not hitting a ball hard against the Braves during that entire series, the Dodgers got off to a quick start against the Rockies. Chase Utley led off the game with a triple to right center, which was promptly followed by a Corey Seager bomb to dead center to give the Dodgers a 2-0 lead.
Adrian Gonzalez then followed later in the inning with a solo shot to right field to stake the Dodgers to a 3-0 first inning lead.
In the fifth inning, A-Gon cashed in another two runs for the Dodgers with a bases loaded single.
That gave the Dodgers a 5-4 lead at that point … but let’s talk about why the Dodgers were trailing prior to that point. The aforementioned Kazmir had another thoroughly mediocre outing, though it wasn’t quite a disaster as his previous two efforts. Kazmir threw 88 pitches and made it through just five innings, striking out three, but surrendering four runs on six hits and a walk.
Kazmir was in major trouble in the second inning with the bases loaded and one out, but wiggled out of it with just one run coming home on a grounder after the Dodgers failed in their attempt to turn a difficult 3-6-1 double play. Unfortunately, Kazmir couldn’t minimize the damage in the fourth inning when he got burned by a pair of quick strikes in the form of solo and two-run homers, but he did leave the game in line for the win.
The bullpen was then tasked to get the last 12 outs of the game without giving up a run, but unfortunately they couldn’t get the job done. Pedro Baez returned happily and healthily with a 1-2-3 sixth inning on just five pitches, but Yimi Garcia‘s seventh inning was neither of those two things. Yimi gave up a sacrifice fly that tied the game at 5-5 and had to be removed after recording two outs due to what looked like an elbow injury and perhaps could explain his general lack of command in the appearance. Adam Liberatore entered for him to face the lefty and escaped any more damage with a strikeout.
The killer blow came in the eighth inning with Chris Hatcher pitching, as he issued a walk and was then ambushed on the first pitch to the next batter for a single. Brandon Barnes then issued the back-breaker, with a two-out triple on a 2-2 count off the right field wall to put the game at the final score of 7-5. Luis Avilan finished the night for the bullpen with a strikeout, but it was far too late.
Perhaps equally as important as the bullpen’s failings was the fact that the Dodgers didn’t score after the fifth inning, and they amassed just three walks and two singles against a Rockies bullpen that was second-worst in the league in ERA coming into tonight’s contest.
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Notes
-In the fourth, Puig stole second, his third of the year against no caught stealings, then took third on an error. Stacie is a genius.
-The Dodgers have won four of the five series they’ve played to this point, but have won the first game of the series in just two of them. Lame.
