Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers lost the series opener against the Mets by an 8-6 score, but it really encapsulated their struggles so far. The offense has been good on paper but wildly inconsistent, yet even though they scored a bunch today the equally uneven starting pitching let them down. Meanwhile the pen has been the only consistent part of the team, just in a bad way.
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Tonight’s game was a bit of a rollercoaster, with the two teams answering any rally by the other side almost immediately.
Starting the scoring was Freddie Freeman in the 1st, who homered off David Peterson to make it 1-0.
The Mets answered right back in the next half inning against Dustin May, who started the game with a 1-2-3 frame. However, after a single to start the 2nd was erased by a double play, another single was immediately cashed in by a Daniel Vogelbach homer to left for a 2-1 Mets lead.
In the bottom of that 2nd, it was the Dodgers turn for revenge. Max Muncy and Trayce Thompson tallied singles, but there were two outs when Austin Wynns stepped to the plate. Well, that didn’t matter much to him as he used his first at-bat as a Dodger to smack an oppo double to clear the bases and make it 3-2 Dodgers.
After some relative quiet where both May and Peterson went 1-2-3 in the 3rd, the 4th saw the Mets string together a frustrating rally. May started by hitting a batter, then allowed back-to-back singles to plate a run and tie it at 3-3. Back-to-back groundouts resulted in the Mets taking a 4-3 lead, and that was extended after a two-out single made it 5-3.
After another quiet inning, things started up again in the 5th when Mookie Betts singled with two outs and the game was tied at 5-5 after Freddie jacked his second homer of the day.
May ended up getting two outs in the 6th and at least kept the Dodgers in it despite not fooling anybody: 5.2 IP, 8 H, 5 R, 0 BB, 1 K, 87 Pitches.
Alex Vesia relieved him in the 6th, issued an intentional walk to a pinch-hitter and then got out of the jam.
That work helped setup Muncy in the bottom of the inning, who smashed his seventh homer for a 6-5 lead all of a sudden.
Predictably, that didn’t last very long. Vesia started the 7th by giving up three singles in a row to load the bases, which brought in Phil Bickford, who promptly balked in a run as his first action to tie things at 6-6.
A groundout plated another run, and a single followed to up the lead to 8-6, and the Dodgers were lucky to get out of it with that score as Bickford reloaded the bases with back-to-back two-out walks and needed Justin Bruihl to get the final out.
Bruihl also got two outs in the 8th, and Shelby Miller got four outs without allowing a run (a miracle!) to close out the Mets. Anyway, I think the pen has a bottom five ERA in the league after tonight, so … that’s not great. Yell at Dave Roberts about whatever, but there’s not much you can do about that as a manager.
The Mets pen was much more effective, getting a clean 7th, and then escaping second and third with one out in the 8th. They then got a clean 9th to close out the Dodgers.
Team is not very good, dunno.
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8-9, lol.
The two teams will meet again on TBS at 4:10 PM HT/7:10 PM PT/10:10 PM ET with Clayton Kershaw facing Tylor Megill.
