Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers fell to the Pirates tonight, 5-1, in what was a winnable game had they not beat themselves the entire time. As the final score indicates, though, they did thoroughly beat themselves by doing absolutely nothing with their scoring chances despite facing a contact and dinger machine, as well as their MVP candidate basically giving away three runs to start the game all by himself.
SWEET
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Despite the line, Ross Stripling was basically as effective as he was all year. He went seven innings on just 92 pitches, striking out four batters and walking none. Stripling did surrender two solo homers and five runs on six hits, but more than half the runs he allowed should’ve never happened.
The actual problem was Corey Seager had probably the worst defensive first inning he’ll ever have (hopefully). The game started off with a routine chopper to short, which he double clutched for an infield “single” after review. Stripling proceeded to surrender back-to-back singles after that, scoring one run, but Seager then dropped the tag on a stolen-base attempt that would’ve resulted in an out. Stripling proceeded to strike out the next batter for what would’ve been the third out, but instead, another infield single scored a run on a ball Seager again double clutched. Yet another run scored on failure to turn a double play on a grounder to short, before the inning mercifully ended with another ground out. That’s three runs right there and the Dodgers basically never recovered from it.
Also, Josh Reddick made this play.
Jesse Chavez finished off the pitching for the Dodgers with two scoreless innings, and ever since his disaster start to his Dodgers career, he’s been quite effective.
The Dodgers got a run in the second inning after a Joc Pederson double with two outs was followed by a Howie Kendrick single to drive him in … aaannnnnnnd that was about it. The Dodgers did get 12 hits (three doubles), but couldn’t sequence them together into anything meaningful all night long.
The Pirates defense helped them out a bunch, but so did the Dodgers inability to hit a shitty pitcher.
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With the loss, the Dodgers fall to 64-51 overall and 37-23 at home. Fortunately, the Giants also lost, so their lead in the NL West remains at 1 game. In the NL Wild Card race, the Marlins (lost) and Cardinals (lost) remain 4 and 4.5 games back for home-field advantage and to make the playoffs, respectively.
The Dodgers get the Pirates again tomorrow afternoon at 10:05 AM HST/1:05 PM PST/4:05 PM EST, and the pitching matchup is not so favorable with Brandon McCarthy (3.00 ERA/3.65 FIP/4.95 DRA) matched up against Gerrit Cole (2.94/2.88/4.21).
