Royals 6, Dodgers 4: Julio Urias returns looking rusty and isn’t helped by luck or his defense

Well, this game was a mess. Things started out about as laughably bad as could be, then the Dodgers provided some hope before doing nothing much the rest of the game in a 6-4 loss to the Royals.

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Julio Urias returned from the IL and was immediately greeted with a long inning that included five runs, a bunch of defensive miscues, and bad luck.

A hard double was followed by a bloop single, then a bloop infield single fell in for a run because Miguel Vargas went to go cover the bag on a stolen base attempt. A walk then loaded the bases, an infield sacrifice fly scored another run, a hit batter re-loaded the bases, another sacrifice fly scored the third run, and finally another bloop single that James Outman got a horrible read on scored the final two of the outing before things mercifully ended.

He eventually managed to get through three innings, but obviously things didn’t go ideally in his start back against a woeful Royals team.

3 IP, 6 H, 5 R, 2 BB, 2 K, 66 Pitches

Look, it's not that Urias looks sharp, but lmao. pic.twitter.com/lejldVDAkW

— Chad Moriyama (@ChadMoriyama) July 2, 2023

On the other side, the Dodgers did try to claw back into the game. In the 2nd they got a three-spot thanks to a Jonny Deluca walk, an Outman single, a Yonny Hernandez double that scored Deluca, a Mookie Betts sacrifice fly to plate Outman, and a Freddie Freeman single to score Yonny to cut things to 5-3.

Meanwhile, Phil Bickford and Ryan Brasier got a pair of innings each, with the latter giving up just an unearned run on his own error, which gave the Royals six runs and made it 6-3. Brusdar Graterol got the 8th, and that was it for the Royals.

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Unfortunately, the Dodgers lineup went quiet. They stranded half-chances in the 3rd (first and third with two outs) and 5th (second with two outs), and also couldn’t get the job done after a lead-off double in the 7th.

Their best chance came in the 8th when back-to-back one-out singles from Max Muncy and David Peralta cornered the runners, and an Outman infield single made it 6-4. Later with two outs, Mookie walked to load the bases for Freddie Freeman, but he couldn’t come through and that was about all she wrote.

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NL WEST	RECORD
Diamondbacks	49-34*
Dodgers	46-36 (2.5 GB)
Giants	46-37 (3 GB)

*Either still playing or will play later.

The rubber match will be tomorrow at 8:10 AM HT/11:10 AM PT/2:10 PM ET with Tony Gonsolin facing Brady Singer.