They missed excessive, vast and, in some of the confounding performs you’ll see on a serious league diamond, even on a comparatively routine throw to first base.
The Dodgers know this isn’t the bullpen they anticipated to have for the time being. They’ve been resigned to taking part in the lengthy recreation, making an attempt to climate key accidents and prolonged absences with a revolving door of minor-league call-ups.
However in a 10-7 loss to the Minnesota Twins on Tuesday night time, even they couldn’t have foreseen the shockingly sloppy pitching that doomed them late.
Within the sixth and seventh innings at Dodger Stadium, the Twins scored six runs with out hardly even needing to swing. Over the 2 innings, Minnesota managed solely two hits. However on an evening that one Dodger reliever after the subsequent struggled to search out the strike zone, a parade of walks (plus one obvious defensive error) saved them circling the bases, turning what had been a tie rating into one of many Dodgers’ most dismal defeats of the season.
“Tonight, it just wasn’t pretty,” supervisor Dave Roberts stated of the Dodgers’ eleventh loss of their final 14 video games. “When you’re walking guys and the defense is spotty and things like that, it wasn’t a good one.”
The nightmare began with Ben Casparius, who changed Yoshinobu Yamamoto after a laborious five-inning, three-run (one earned) begin.
Straight away, Casparius’ command seemed off. He walked one batter on 5 pitches, then one other after a Ty France double to load the bases. Up subsequent got here Royce Lewis, who took a first-pitch cutter inside earlier than watching every of Casparius’ subsequent three throws sail nicely above the zone. It was a four-pitch stroll that pressured in a go-ahead run. And as Lewis trotted to first, Casparius grabbed at his proper leg and referred to as for a coach, exiting the sport with what he stated was a calf cramp.
“The last couple pitches of warmups, I kind of felt my foot give a little bit, like a Charley horse feeling, clenched up,” stated Casparius, who will get an MRI on Wednesday to rule out something extra severe. “Hoping [it was just] unbearable cramps, but we’re gonna see.”
Alexis Diaz, the previous All-Star Cincinnati Reds nearer who was making his first look for the Dodgers since being acquired in a minor-league commerce earlier this season, couldn’t escape the jam he inherited unscathed. Harrison Bader drove in a run on a swinging bunt up the third final analysis. Christian Vázquez added one other with an RBI single to left.
And although the Dodgers answered again with two runs within the backside half of the inning, trimming the deficit to 6-5 on a two-run Hyeseong Kim single, the pitching employees made positive the momentum didn’t final.
Within the seventh, hard-throwing right-hander Will Klein took over, however succumbed to the identical destiny as Casparius. After putting out Willi Castro, he walked every of his subsequent three batters on pitches that drifted progressively farther from the plate.
The ultimate indignity belonged to Edgardo Henriquez, who marked his return to the majors with a comical little bit of pitchers’ fielding apply.
After beginning Lewis, his first batter, with a wild cutter that despatched catcher Will Smith sprawling behind the plate, Henriquez executed a greater one on the surface nook to induce an excuse-me swing.
The one drawback: The ball went trickling again towards Henriquez in entrance of the mound, the place he first bobbled it, then made an ill-advised resolution to attempt to compensate with a rocket of a throw to first base.
It missed — horrendously — zipping previous Freddie Freeman and rolling all the way in which to the wall in proper subject whereas all three baserunners got here round to attain.
Many of the crowd groaned. Others, absolutely, couldn’t assist however quietly chortle in pitiful distress.
In what’s shaping as much as be one of many Dodgers’ worst single-month performances in years (they’re now 6-11 in July, and have dropped 4 of 5 because the All-Star break), this was a brand new nadir.
“It better be rock bottom, as far as how we’ve been pitching, how we’ve been playing defense,” Roberts stated. “As far as quality of baseball, it’s been a tough watch. It really has.”
Certainly, the Dodgers (59-43) upset in myriad different methods Tuesday.
There was the three-run rally they gifted the Twins (49-52) within the second inning, when Miguel Rojas misplayed a grounder at third base and Yamamoto hung a two-strike splitter that Vázquez belted for a two-run double.
There have been squandered alternatives from what stays an out-of-sync offense, which received an early three-run residence run from Andy Pages and a garbage-time two-run residence run from Shohei Ohtani (his fourth-straight recreation going deep), but in addition hit into three rally-killing double performs.
Nonetheless, nothing stood out greater than the woeful reduction pitching, the place a unit at present with out half a dozen essential items (together with, most not too long ago, Tanner Scott, who went on the injured checklist pregame with what the Dodgers have been grateful to study wasn’t a season-ending elbow harm) got here unraveled making an attempt to lean on unreliable replacements.
“They’ve got to throw strikes. They’ve got to put guys away. They’ve got to be efficient,” Roberts stated of the present reduction corps, which is desperately awaiting the return of injured veterans and reinforcements on the commerce deadline.
“Some of these guys, you can’t protect them. They’re going to be in leverage because of who we’ve got in the pen. So that’s just kind of where we’re at. I look at it as these guys are getting opportunities, golden opportunities. It’s what they make of it.”
