BALTIMORE — In a single nook of the room, Tanner Scott stared blankly into his locker, attempting to come back to grips with one more recreation he let get away.
Throughout from him, Dalton Dashing propped a pair of crutches below his arms, limping out of sight with the Dodgers’ newest harm.
On the other wall, Freddie Freeman received dressed at his stall; taking within the somber scene within the visiting clubhouse at Camden Yards, whereas attempting to consider precisely what to say concerning the group’s troubling, tumbling, torturous present play.
“Sometimes, you just don’t have the right answers,” Freeman mentioned, as reporters gathered round for a well-recognized line of questions. “Not going to sit here and give some cliches. We’re just not playing very good. … There’s no sugarcoating this. We need to figure this out, and figure this out quick.”
Certainly, simply when the Dodgers’ second-half stoop appeared prefer it couldn’t get any worse, Friday delivered a brand new set of complications.
Scheduled beginning pitcher Tyler Glasnow was scratched within the afternoon with again tightness, forcing Shohei Ohtani to pitch on simply 5 hours’ discover.
Shohei Ohtani pitches in the course of the first inning of a loss to the Baltimore Orioles on Friday at Oriole Park at Camden Yards.
(Scott Taetsch / Getty Pictures)
Dashing exited early after fouling a ball painfully off his proper shin, leaving the Dodgers with out each their beginning backstop (Will Smith stays sidelined with a bone bruise on his hand) or his backup (X-rays on Dashing’s leg have been detrimental, however he may even want a CT scan) for at the very least the following few days.
After which, after all, there was the sport: A 2-1 walk-off loss to the last-place Baltimore Orioles that despatched the slumping Dodgers to a fourth straight defeat.
“We can sit here after every game and talk about what we need to do,” Freeman mentioned. “It’s just, we got to do it.”
Friday went off the rails earlier than the Dodgers (78-63) even arrived on the ballpark, beginning with a flurry of cellphone calls to determine their pitching.
Abruptly, Dodgers coaches, staffers and front-office officers in Baltimore and in Los Angeles started what pitching coach Mark Prior described as a “game of telephone” — attempting to determine what to do about Glasnow, and who may pitch if he have been unable.
“There was a lot of moving parts,” Prior quipped.
Finally, the group determined to scratch Glasnow, choosing a cautious method to what they hope is simply a minor subject. In accordance with supervisor Dave Roberts, the tentative plan is to fit Glasnow again into the rotation early subsequent week. However given his harm historical past, questions will linger till he’s really again on the hill.
Within the meantime, the group needed to determine who to ship to the mound on Friday. At round 2 p.m., the request went to Ohtani — who had been scratched from a scheduled pitching begin Wednesday in Pittsburgh whereas battling an sickness, however had improved sufficient to oblige the short-notice request.
“It’s gonna be OK,” Freeman joked as he adopted Ohtani into the visiting clubhouse at Camden Yards just a few hours later. “The unicorn is here.”
Ohtani did his half in what was an abbreviated outing by design, delivering 3⅔ scoreless innings with 5 strikeouts and three hits given up.
The Baltimore Orioles’ Samuel Basallo flips his bat after hitting a walk-off residence run towards the Dodgers Friday in Baltimore.
(Stephanie Scarbrough / Related Press)
However, of their newest dispiriting efficiency, the Dodgers couldn’t make it matter, going silent on the plate once more earlier than struggling one more late-game meltdown.
“I know each day the guys come in fresh, prepared and expecting a different result,” Roberts mentioned. “But we’re just not getting it done.”
Offensively, the Dodgers struggled to generate possibilities, or capitalize upon the few they did. Baltimore starter Dean Kremer retired his first eight batters, together with first-inning fly balls from Mookie Betts and Freeman that died on the wall. When the Dodgers did create alternatives within the third (getting two aboard with two outs) and the fourth (loading the bases with two outs) they got here up empty; persevering with an inexplicable slide by which they’ve ranked twenty seventh within the majors in scoring over their final 53 video games.
“We individually are trying to find ways on our own to … [be] hitting better than we are,” Ohtani, who managed solely a stroll in 4 journeys to the plate, mentioned by way of interpreter Will Ireton. “But I think the side effect of that is, we’re a little too eager, and putting too much pressure on ourselves. That’s really hurting us more than it’s helping.”
On the mound, in the meantime, Ohtani managed to put up zeros, navigating the Orioles (65-76) with a fastball that touched 101.5 mph and a various combine that helped induce 12 swing-and-misses.
However as quickly as he exited — pulled after 70 pitches given the rushed leadup to his begin — the Dodgers shortly fell behind on a obtrusive defensive lapse.
Within the fifth, the Orioles drew a pair of walks. Then, with lead runner Jackson Holliday breaking for third, a sweeper within the dust received previous Dashing — the fifth wild pitch he allowed within the final two video games filling in for Smith.
Holliday turned for residence as Dashing scrambled to the backstop. By the point Dashing threw to the plate, Holliday was already sliding in safely for the primary run of the sport.
The Dodgers’ deficit didn’t final for lengthy. On the primary pitch of the sixth, Freeman whacked one other fly ball that carried deep sufficient to get out, his nineteenth residence run of the season tying the rating 1-1.
However then, extra frustration adopted — with the Dodgers leaving two runners stranded later in that inning, when Dashing was compelled to exit together with his harm; then one other within the seventh, when Freeman grounded out following a two-out double from Betts.
“Not scoring runs, it’s just not who we are,” Freeman mentioned. “We’re not getting anything going. We’re not getting the hits.”
“We haven’t for a while,” he added. “I truly have no answers.”
Neither, it seems, does Scott, the already embattled nearer who suffered his newest calamity within the ninth.
After getting the primary two outs, the left-hander made the identical form of mistake that has haunted him all season, leaving a 1-and-2 fastball proper down the center to Samuel Basallo that the Orioles catcher clobbered for a no-doubt, successful blast deep to right-center area.
“I just keep making terrible pitch selections right when it matters, and it’s costing us every time,” mentioned Scott, who has a 4.52 ERA and 11 mixed blown saves and charged losses. “It sucks. It feels terrible. And I have to figure it out. Because baseball hates me right now.”
These days, it hasn’t been extra relenting on the Dodgers as a complete, both — dealing them painful losses and crippling accidents amid a continued seek for any shred of improved play.
“We all are confident in who we are as baseball players. We’re just not doing it right now in the field,” Freeman mentioned, because the gloomy postgame clubhouse surrounding him mirrored the anguished state of the group. “The game of baseball’s really hard, but the concept is easy. We’re making the concept really hard right now.”
