Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers fell to the Padres tonight, 7-6, as they continue to dig themselves into a deeper hole, now 1-5 in their last six games. While Yasiel Puig‘s power and baserunning contributed to the Dodgers efforts early, it was Justin Turner that came through late for the Dodgers. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite enough, as Kenley Jansen blew his first game of the season.
With the loss, the Dodgers move below .500 to 21-22 and 11-10 away from home.
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Let’s start with the terrible, because why not?
Scott Kazmir had to throw 106 pitches just to get through 5.2 innings of an absolute struggle start. Kazmir surrendered just three hits, but gave up two homers and walked a career-high seven batters while getting burned for five runs. While his ERA is 5.21, he’s been one of the few pitchers on the team that hasn’t been a tad unlucky, as his FIP is actually 5.71 now.
The five runs came on a bases loaded two-run single allowed to opposing starter Christian Friedrich, a solo homer to Derek Norris (hitting .177), and a two-run shot to pinch-hitter Christian Bethancourt (backup catcher). There’s no way around saying that he’s just actually bad right now.
As far as the offense goes, the Dodgers squandered a bases loaded opportunity in the first with two outs, and then did it again in the fourth, though that time they ran into a run of unfortunate luck.
https://twitter.com/ChadMoriyama/status/733871229828898817
They did manage to get runs on an RBI double from Corey Seager, as well as an RBI “double” from Yasmani Grandal that was basically a single to left that somehow Puig managed to score on.
Speaking of Puig, he finally got unhitched a bit, unsurprisingly by taking one of those balls out the outer half the other way for once for a two-run shot.
Still the Dodgers were down by a run in the eighth inning, and with two down things looked awful hopeless. That’s when Carl Crawford, down 1-2 in the count and seemingly about to make another easy out, singled up the middle to put the winning run at the plate in Turner. For all of Turner’s struggles, he hit his second homer of the year when it counted this time.
The bullpen trio of Louis Coleman, Adam Liberatore, and Pedro Baez managed to get through two scoreless innings, but Jansen was still called upon to get a four-out save. Jansen got out of the eighth inning undamaged…
…but a misplay by Chase Utley resulted in a “single”, and then Melvin Upton Jr. took Jansen out to right-center for a walk-off.
Serious?
Kenley Jansen's last blown save was Aug. 23, 2015 at Houston. He converted 25 straight saves before tonight
— Eric Stephen (@ericstephen) May 21, 2016
This is the first walkoff homer Kenley Jansen has allowed in his seven-season career.
— Dodger Insider (@DodgerInsider) May 21, 2016
K.
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The Dodgers play the Padres again tomorrow at 7:10 PST/10:10 EST, and the pitching matchup is Alex Wood against Cesar Vargas.
