Mets 4, Dodgers 2: Offense Rolls Over, Plays Dead

The Dodgers fell to the Mets tonight, 4-2, dropping the team back to .500 at 16-16 and to a miserable 5-9 at home.

K.

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Scott Kazmir got off to an inauspicious start tonight with his first pitch of the game being hammered over the right-field wall by Curtis Granderson. In the following inning, Kevin Plawecki also homered, and then in the third a Yoenis Cespedes single drove in another run.

So all that’s terrible and stuff, but it could’ve been literally twice as worse had Kazmir not been saved damage by a Yasiel Puig diving catch…

…and two sterling plays by Enrique Hernandez and his arm. One erased a lead-off double and another got Kazmir out of a bases-loaded jam by catching Cespedes straying off second on a fliner for a double play.

https://twitter.com/ChadMoriyama/status/729868309445812224

I suppose it’s only fitting then that Kazmir generally settled down after that but was victimized by his defense in the sixth. With two down, Howie Kendrick came up cleanly with a routine grounder to end the inning. The problem was that he dropped the ball while taking it out of his glove, putting runners on first and second. Of course, on the very next pitch, opposing pitcher Steven Matz doubled down the left-field line for the fourth run of the game for the Mets and that was the end of his night.

When all was said and done, Kazmir threw 101 pitches over 5.2 innings while striking out six, and it’s a miracle that he only gave up four runs (three earned) on four walks and six hits (two homers) considering all the defensive plays he needed just for that mediocre result.

Did any of that actually matter, though? Nah. This offense can barely get a hit, much less get a key one.

The offense for the Dodgers managed just six hits and two walks on the day, only managing to score two runs thanks to a Justin Turner bloop single and a Trayce Thompson bloop home run just over the short wall in right field.

Seriously though, there wasn’t much else of note because not only could the Dodgers not get many scoring chances, when they did they went 0-for-7 with RISP.

Um … at least Adam Liberatore, Joe Blanton, Louis Coleman, J.P. Howell, and Chris Hatcher combined for 3.1 scoreless innings?

Yeah.

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The Dodgers play the Mets again tomorrow night at 7:10 PM PST/10:10 PM EST, and the starting duo will unfortunately be Alex Wood against Jacob deGrom.