Cubs 6, Dodgers 3: Nightmare eighth inning spoils Yamamoto’s return and Edman’s big night at the plate

Alex Campos 09/10/2024 Game Recaps Leave A Comment

The Dodgers dropped their second consecutive game to the Cubs in frustrating fashion. It started off ominously enough, as Anthony Banda was placed on the IL shortly before game time with a broken hand. Yoshinobu Yamamoto made his first start in nearly three months and was excellent, but a disastrous eighth inning sunk the Dodgers for a 6-3 loss.

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Yamamoto was dominant in his four innings of work in his first start since June 15. He allowed four hits and a run (which should probably be three hits and one unearned run) over his four innings and eight of the 12 outs he recorded were by strikeout.

He struck out the side in the first and third innings, but fell into trouble in the second. He allowed a pair of singles before Pete Crow-Armstrong hit a chopper to first. It ate up Freddie Freeman and bounced off his chest into foul territory, allowing a run to score. The Cubs got another one-out single off Yamamoto in the fourth, but that was erased on a double play.

His final line: 4 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 8 K, 59 P.

Meanwhile, the Dodgers had more success against Shota Imanaga than they did in Chicago back in April. This was mostly due to Tommy Edman, who hit his first two Dodger home runs on two pitches the first two times he saw Imanaga.

Max Muncy joined the party to lead off the fifth with his 13th homer of the season and his fourth against a lefty.

Imanaga did get through seven with only those three runs allowed. However, the Dodger bullpen matched him through seven. Ryan Brasier needed nine pitches for a scoreless fifth, and Blake Treinen wasn’t quite as efficient but also threw a scoreless sixth. Alex Vesia threw a scoreless seventh, but Dave Roberts had him start the eighth against lefty Ian Happ. He walked Happ to end his night, and then Evan Phillips came in and all hell broke loose.

Dansby Swanson hit a ball about two feet. Austin Barnes fielded and threw wide to first, allowing him to reach on an error. Seiya Suzuki singled to center to drive in a run, but a second run scored after Miguel Rojas seemingly tried to deke Edman’s throw in for some reason and the ball ended up in the camera well.

After an intentional walk and strikeout, Phillips got a weak grounder to second that Enrique Hernandez tried to field quickly enough to tag Cody Bellinger while running to second. Instead, he missed the ball and allowed another run to score. Nico Hoerner followed that up with a double to score Bellinger, and Hernandez recorded the second out on a nice diving stop but a run scored. Just like that, the 3-1 lead turned into a 6-3 deficit on two hits, two walks and three errors.

Not great!

Brusdar Graterol made his return to the mound in the ninth after being activated to take Banda’s place. He allowed a pair of two-out singles, but got out of it unscathed. More importantly, he made it out of the inning healthy.

While the Dodger defense was bad, the Cubs were excellent. Crow-Armstrong made like four insane plays in center, capped off by robbing Muncy of a second homer in the ninth that would have made it a 6-5 game. In a sense, this was more bad defense by the Dodgers. Fan gotta high point that.

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The Diamondbacks and Padres both won, so they’re now 5 and 4.5 games back of the Dodgers, respectively. A huge wasted opportunity today, and now they look to stave off the sweep tomorrow. Bobby Miller looks to get back on track for the Dodgers, as they face another lefty in Jordan Wicks. First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 PM PT.

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About Alex Campos

I've been writing about the Dodgers since I graduated from Long Beach State, where I covered the Dirtbags in my senior year. I'm either very good or very bad at puns.
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