Rockies 6, Dodgers 1: Just Forget Any Of That Happened

There’s three especially major parts to any baseball game. (And lesser parts like umpire, weather, manager, etc.) How’d that work out for the Dodgers against the Rockies today?

Pitching — Hyun-jin Ryu, well… at least he didn’t walk anyone? But he did give up nine hits and six runs, including Josh Rutledge‘s crushing three-run homer in the sixth inning that ended his day. All 14 of Ryu’s earned runs this season have come at home. All four of his road starts have been scoreless. I’m not yet prepared to call that a thing, but it’s not not a thing.

Batting — Jorge De La Rosa, Adam Ottavino and Chris Martin combined to shut down the Dodgers on eight hits and three walks. Their one run came in the first on the smallest small-ball of all, Dee Gordon scoring on an Adrian Gonzalez single after bunting his way on, being sacrificed to second by Yasiel Puig, and stealing third. (And hey, any time you can take the bat out of Puig’s hands in the first inning you’re doing something right, even if it may have been his idea.) Ryu and Tim Federowicz singled in the second, and… that was basically it. Only once did the Dodgers manage to even get a runner to third after that, and that took until two outs in the bottom of the ninth, when Scott Van Slyke, Hanley Ramirez, and Gordon all singled. Puig, swinging at the first pitch, grounded out to third.

Defense — Justin Turner made an error that was as much mental as it was physical, choosing to run a batter caught in a rundown back to first while letting a man on third scoot home, then making a wild throw that had no chance to become an out. Ryu made one, and Kemp made one too. The trio of miscues give the Dodgers 26 errors on the season, tied for the most in baseball. Now, you know how little stock I put into straight errors — fielding percentage is just about equal to pitcher wins on the scale of usefulness — and you could argue that they’re middle-of-the-pack, but what they aren’t is good. Other than Carl Crawford, little of this is surprising. The guys we thought would be good — Uribe, Gonzalez — have been, and the guys we knew wouldn’t be — Kemp, Ramirez — haven’t. Of course, this wasn’t exactly a wonderful defensive team last year either, and it didn’t stop them from the NLCS.

The Dodgers have the day off tomorrow before resuming in Minnesota on Tuesday, assuming the weather holds up. I imagine we could all use the break. This team sure looks like they’re sleepwalking right now, and it’s getting increasingly difficult to ignore that a full half of their 14 wins have come against the embarrassing tire fire that is the Arizona Diamondbacks. They’re now 7-11 against everyone else.