Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers fell 8-5 to the Rays this afternoon, ending their quest for both a two-game sweep and three wins in a row.
The loss drops the Dodgers back to .500 at 14-14 and their away record to 9-6 on the year.
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After the 10-run outburst yesterday, the Dodgers offense did score five runs on eight hits, but a lot of that offense was gifted to them in the form of seven walks.
The team got on the board in the fourth inning after a Howie Kendrick singled, advanced to second on a Trayce Thompson chopper, and was driven in after Yasmani Grandal laced a single to left.
The sixth looked like it could’ve been a big inning after Yasiel Puig and Adrian Gonzalez led the frame off with back-to-back singles, but in the end, the Dodgers had to settle for a single run and only after a wild pitch.
At least Puig told the catcher not to bother, which was probably the highlight of the game for this team.
On the other side of the ball, it was a lot like yesterday with a mixture of great and terrible. Alex Wood threw 78 pitches in his five innings of work and sorta looked in control most of the way. Wood struck out seven, walked none, and kept his pitch count down. However, he did give up five runs (four earned) on six hits, because three of those hits were homers to Brandon Guyer, Steven Souza, and Steve Pearce. Two things that are of serious concern despite the improvement elsewhere is the fact that he struggles to strand runners and that he can’t seem to make it through the order more than twice (much like Mike Bolsinger and Ross Stripling).
Louis Coleman entered in relief in the sixth and stopped the bleeding immediately, but the floodgates opened in the seventh when Pedro Baez entered with a gas can. Baez surrendered three runs in total, including one on another homer, and couldn’t survive the inning. Adam Liberatore allowed one of those runs to score on a double, but otherwise got the out he needed to escape further damage. Chris Hatcher pitched a scoreless eighth, so it was basically just Baez being a disaster today.
Anyway, after Baez’s inning it was 8-2 and things seemed hopeless, but the Rays relievers had a disaster of their own in the eighth. The Dodgers got four walks and a Justin Turner single in the inning, but could still only muster three runs. So basically, the inning was only to tease fans into generating hope before snatching it away with terrible plate appearances.
Carl Crawford swung at ball four on a 3-2 count with runners on second and third to end the threat and basically the game, and his line is now .179/.233/.286. Andre Ethier‘s injury was supposed to be his opportunity to become a regular again. Instead, an Enrique Hernandez and Thompson platoon in left is now the best option.
Yikes.
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The Dodgers have an off day tomorrow as they travel to Toronto for a three-game series against the Blue Jays. When the Dodgers play again on Friday, the pitching matchup will be Kenta Maeda against Marcus Stroman.
