Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers fell to the Padres in an 11-inning game, 3-2, after the offense failed to do much of anything and Chin Hui Tsao was left in to walk three batters in a row.
With the loss, the Dodgers fall to 21-23 and 11-11 on the road.
—–
After yesterday’s relative offensive explosion by both teams, today was more of what one would expect from a game played at Petco Park.
The Dodgers offense struggled to mount much of anything against Cesar Vargas, who gave up just four hits and a walk in his seven innings of work. Fortunately, in the seventh inning, Adrian Gonzalez led-off the frame with a single and Trayce Thompson followed with a two-run homer.
The Dodgers managed just two walks in the other four innings, which basically says it all about why the Dodgers lost this game.
Starter Alex Wood threw 93 pitches over six-plus dominant innings of work, allowing only four hits and a single walk while striking out 13 batters. He did, however, allow a run in both of the last two innings he pitched. In the sixth, he allowed a walk, a single, and a Matt Kemp sacrifice fly for a run. Then, in the seventh, he started the inning by giving up a double and a single back-to-back, leading to his exit from the game.
The bullpen then entered in the form of Louis Coleman, who induced a harmless pop-up to third. After Coleman got his man, Adam Liberatore entered to face the lefty and got a fly out to left, but it was unfortunately deep enough to score the run. The frame ended with Liberatore notching a strikeout, and even though the tying run came in it’s hard to complain too much about the work that was done.
https://twitter.com/ChadMoriyama/status/734239588114268162
Joe Blanton was assigned both the eighth and ninth innings tonight, and he struck out four batters while only issuing a walk in his 27 pitches of work.
J.P. Howell had the 10th and got much confidence from me…
https://twitter.com/ChadMoriyama/status/734251691269201921
…so he pitched a perfect frame, striking out a batter.
That brought up Chin Hui Tsao, who got two outs, but after a lead-off single, one of them came in rather dramatic fashion.
So of course he proceeded to reward that bit of luck by walking three straight batters and losing the game.
Almost like he had money on the Padres or something.
—–
The Dodgers finish up the series against the Padres tomorrow at 1:40 AM PST/4:40 PM EST, and the pitching matchup is Kenta Maeda against Colin Rea.
