Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
After continuing their offensive skid yesterday in rather embarrassing fashion, the Dodgers showed signs of life today, compiling some quality at-bats and scratching together runs against quality phenom opposition. Unfortunately, they were put in a massive hole early and were unable to climb out in a 10-6 loss to the Pirates.
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While struggling from time to time, the results for James Paxton have generally been good enough even if the peripherals indicated otherwise. Well, he came crashing back to reality today.
In the 2nd inning, he went walk, single, double, single, single, sacrifice for an out, walk, single, out (!), and single to make it 6-0 in a flash. That’s five straight hits to start the inning, and he was removed at this point. Yeesh.
So, a lot happened. pic.twitter.com/WctoqokF6l
— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) June 6, 2024
Yohan Ramirez entered and Will Smith boxed a pitch for a passed ball, scoring the seventh and thankfully final run of the inning. 7-0.
Though to be fair to Ramirez, he got the next inning in 1-2-3 fashion and looks pretty good recently.
Not saying he's a guy yet, but Yohan Ramirez is on five scoreless appearances now. Stuff looks interesting. pic.twitter.com/Kmj97B0rKd
— Chad Moriyama (@ChadMoriyama) June 5, 2024
Meanwhile, phenom Paul Skenes was on the other side, and he got off to a quick start by humiliating the Dodgers in the 1st. They did get a chance in the 2nd after a double, but of course that went for naught as well.
They showed signs of life in the 3rd behind an Andy Pages single and Shohei Ohtani finally lifting the ball again for his 15th dinger of the year. 7-2.
105.6 mph from Shohei! pic.twitter.com/7lzOA5qmRS
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) June 5, 2024
The Dodgers then had their best chance in the 5th. Pages led the inning off with his sixth homer of the year to cut things to grand slam range, then Chris Taylor reached on an error, Ohtani singled, and Smith singled to load the bases with two out. However, they weren’t able to generate anything from that.
No. 6 for Andy! pic.twitter.com/yPSe9w3gnZ
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) June 6, 2024
That failure made it even worse when Anthony Banda gave up an unearned run in the 5th to push the lead back to four runs at 8-3, and that was all Banda surrendered in his two innings.
The Dodgers did chip away a bit more at the Pirates pen, as a Jason Heyward lead-off double in the 6th was scored on a grounder and a wild pitch.
Then in the 7th, a two-out Freddie Freeman single and steal was scored on a Smith single to make it 8-5.
It was kinda becoming a game again.
Unfortunately, Ryan Yarbrough had an off night. After a scoreless 6th, he gave up two singles and two walks in the other half of the 7th to push the Pirates lead back to 10-5. He completed the game for the Dodgers pen with a scoreless 8th, but the damage was done.
As if to torture us further, Heyward started the 8th with a double, then scored on a Gavin Lux single to make it 10-6.
But that was it for the offense, as they finished off the game quietly in the 9th.
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| NL WEST | RECORD |
|---|---|
| Dodgers | 38-25 |
| Padres | 32-32 (7.5 GB)* |
| Giants | 30-33 (8 GB) |
*Either still playing or will play later.
The series will conclude tomorrow at (thankfully) the same time of 12:40 PM HT/3:40 PM PT/6:40 PM ET with Walker Buehler on the bump against Bailey Falter.
