Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
Usually days off are welcome, but the scuffling Dodgers surely didn’t want two days off at this point in the season. At least the weather allowed them to play the Giants today, though the two teams seemed to try to makeup for yesterday by giving us another extra-inning marathon. In the end, Wilmer Font surrendered a walk-off homer and the Dodgers fell to the Giants, 7-5.
——
Last time out against the Giants, Rich Hill provided six shutout innings, but dreams of a repeat performance were dashed early. He gave up three runs total, one on a single and a double in the first and two on a home run to Buster Posey in fourth, which wasn’t great because he only lasted four innings. Hill did strikeout six batters, but gave up five hits and two walks in his 76 pitches.
The Dodgers offense has looked absolutely pathetic to this point, and that seemed to be the case early again. But they got one run in the third after a Chase Utley double and a two-out single by Chris Taylor.
Still trailing by two, the Dodgers thankfully struck back in the sixth, with Corey Seager starting with a single and Yasiel Puig drawing a walk. Then with one down, Logan Forsythe also walked to load the bases, and Enrique Hernandez was brought on to pinch-hit. There was a cross-up on the first pitch he saw, leading to a run, and Enrique followed with a ground out to short to tie the game at three.
While Pedro Baez pitched a scoreless fifth, he allowed a one-out single in the sixth before being removed. Tony Cingrani entered and immediately allowed the runner to score after Brandon Belt hammered a double off the wall. Cingrani rebounded with two strikeouts to end the inning, but the Giants reclaimed the lead.
That thankfully didn’t last long as Utley hit a high solo shot to right to tie the game in the seventh.
That brought on Kenta Maeda, who was put in the bullpen following the rainouts, and while he allowed a double and an infield single, he also struck out two and escaped damage. Ross Stripling was next and all he did was strikeout the side in the eighth, and he also got two outs in the ninth. To get the final out, however, JT Chargois was called on and sent us to extra innings, then he also pitched a scoreless tenth to keep things going. Josh Fields entered in the 11th and also got a scoreless frame of his own, before Kenley Jansen made an appearance in the 12th. After his struggles in 2018, the trend seemed on pace to continue today after he allowed back-to-back singles to start the inning, but he managed to escape it without damage and even achieved a season milestone.
https://twitter.com/ChadMoriyama/status/982807845811904512
Yeesh.
Meanwhile, Scott Alexander was summoned for the 13th, and he still can’t really throw strikes but at least the Giants didn’t seem to know that and kept swinging at crap that allowed him to get a 1-2-3 frame.
While all this was going on, the Dodgers offense simply could not get it going, stranding RISP in the third, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and twelfth innings, and while I’d like to say they just sucked, at times they were hitting line drives all over the park that just are not falling right now.
Finally, in the 14th, Puig and Cody Bellinger started with back-to-back singles to put runners on the corners. Forsythe then stepped up and cracked a single to drive in the go-ahead run.
They didn’t get any insurance though, so that left Font yet again to nail things down. Font started by getting burnt by an unfortunately placed bloop single and then giving up a lined single to put runners on the corners. After an extended battle, Andrew McCutchen drove a three-run walk-off homer to continue the misery of the Dodgers.
——
The Dodgers fall to 2-6 on the year, and everything is terrible.
