Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
After last night’s blowout victory, the Dodgers looked to continue their winning ways and take a series against their rivals, but the Giants had other ideas as they walked things off in the 9th to take the game and series in handing the Dodgers a 2-1 loss.
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Hyun-Jin Ryu got off to a rather disasterous start. In the 1st, he surrendered a single to Steven Duggar, which was followed by a Tyler Austin double. Brandon Belt then stepped up to the plate and absolutely obliterated a ball to right-center … where it’s comically deep and thus resulted in a 420-foot sacrifice fly to put the Giants on the board first. However, Ryu quickly rebounded as he induced a grounder that didn’t allow the other runner to score and then got a fly out to end the threat.
In fact, after the first two batters of the game, Ryu allowed just a bunt single and an infield single, facing the minimum afterward. All in all, he allowed just the one run on four hits and no walks, striking out six over eight innings.
Madison Bumgarner invoked vintage form tonight, turning back the clock to strikeout eight batters in six innings, allowing just a run on four hits and two walks. And it took some luck in the 6th to finally get to him.
Of course it naturally involved Enrique Hernandez, who doubled to start. However, two outs later and it looked like the rally was dead, but Cody Bellinger yanked a pitch down the line in right as Enrique was trying to take third. Bellinger was easily safe after using his speed to beat the throw from Belt, and Enrique just kept on running on the play in order to tie the game at one apiece.
Unfortunately, that was it for the rally.
Enrique continued his dominance of MadBum though, going 2-for-3 with a single and a double off him tonight.
In the 7th against Reyes Moronta, the Dodgers looked on the verge of taking the lead. Chris Taylor reached on an error and Alex Verdugo followed with a single. Ryu was then asked to bunt them over, but failed at doing so and struck out. However, CT3 did steal third, so there was a golden opportunity for Enrique, which he squandered with a strikeout. After Verdugo stole second, Corey Seager had two runners in scoring position, but all he did was notch his hat trick of strikeouts to strand them both.
They also ran into bad luck as a wild pitch hit the umpire and didn’t get to the backstop as like the cherry on top for that mess.
Threats in the 4th and 9th also fell short, as the Dodgers went 1-for-10 with runners in scoring position.
That eventually doomed them, as the pen coughed it up in the 9th. Julio Urias entered and got two outs in exchange for two hits. That required Pedro Baez to matchup with Buster Posey, who dunked one to left to drive in the game-winning run. Apparently some had issues with the way Dave Roberts managed that, but not a whole lot one can do when two of your best relief options give up three singles to the Giants before they can get three outs.
Never easy against the Giants no matter how terrible they are in a given year.
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The loss drops the Dodgers to 20-13 on the season, ahey’re off tomorrow as they make their way to San Diego for a three-game series against the Padres. It starts on Friday at 4:10 PM HST/7:10 PM PST/10:10 PM EST with Clayton Kershaw facing off against Eric Lauer.
