Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
Welcome back to Joe Kelly and to Dave Robots‘ reliance on him, as the much maligned reliever allowed a walk-off homer to Dominic Smith.
Having already pitched a scoreless eighth inning, Kelly returned for the ninth and recorded a pair of outs before Smith came to the plate. Robots probably wasn’t pushing him too much, with Kelly ending the game at 20 pitches, but tempting fate led to a 5-4 loss for the Dodgers (33-25) on Sunday to wrap up the series with the Mets (38-21).
Both starters, Clayton Kershaw and Jacob deGrom, struggled a bit with home runs as each worked seven innings. Kershaw allowed three solo shots: Yoenis Cespedes in the fourth and J.D. Davis and Wilson Ramos in the seventh.
“We take it day by day here,” Davis said. “And today was a good one for us.“
Enrique Hernandez followed the homer off Kershaw with his own in the fifth to tie the game, 1-1, before Joc Pederson hit his 15th of the year in the seventh to give the Dodgers the lead.
Kershaw left the game after seven innings, trailing 4-3, having struck out seven and walked one. Mookie Botts helped Kershaw avoid a loss with his RBI double in the eighth off Seth Lugo, who struggled for the second straight day.
Really, there wasn’t much more to it than that. Botts and Hernandez each finished with multi-hit games, and New York’s 5-6-7 hitters finished 7-for-11 with three runs and two home runs.
The Dodgers now return to simulated Los Angeles for six straight games, three against Atlanta and three against Colorado. Of course, Monday is Clayton Kershaw Bobblehead Day, which he missed pitching on by just one day.
