Dodgers Interview: Tanner Scott Faces the Music After 10th Blown Save
"I wasn't executing."
PHOENIX – Tanner Scott has been trending the right way for a week, stringing together four straight scoreless outings and hinting at much-needed stability at the back end. Tuesday night in Phoenix, all of that feel-good momentum evaporated in three batters. After a hit batsman and a walk, the Diamondbacks had life, the tying run moved into scoring position, and the Dodgers’ 4–3 cushion was on borrowed time. Arizona walked it off, 5–4, and Scott walked to the microphones with no excuses.
“I hit the first guy and walked the second guy,” he said, outlining the ninth-inning spiral. “You put yourself in a pretty tough spot and I wasn’t executing pitches.” That’s the inning in a sentence. Scott plunked Ildemaro Vargas with a back-foot slider and then issued a free pass to Tim Tawa. A sacrifice bunt moved both runners up, a sacrifice fly by Jorge Barrosa tied it, and Geraldo Perdomo’s liner to left ended it. “I gave up a long fly ball and just put myself in a bad situation,” Scott added. “Getting the first two guys on with no outs makes it definitely harder, and I wasn’t executing.”
If there was any temptation to lean on bad luck or close calls, Scott didn’t take it. The postgame theme was ownership. Asked how hard it is to recalibrate mid-outing after two immediate baserunners, he kept the focus on the strike zone. “You’re trying not to get anyone else on,” he said. “I was out there grinding and it just didn’t go my way.” He made a point to credit Alex Vesia for a gritty eighth that preserved the one-run lead—“Vesia’s inning before was huge”—and then swallowed the result whole: “For that to happen sucks. We should have won that game. It’s my fault.”
The bluntness matters, because this wasn’t just another loss in May. It was Scott’s 10th blown save of the season—most in the majors—and it stole a win from Shohei Ohtani after six scoreless, eight-strikeout innings and a 4–0 lead. The club’s magic number remained three. The division picture tightened. The room got quieter.
So where does Scott go from here with five games left? His posture was the only one a reliever can have in late September: take the ball again and attack. “Tomorrow’s a new day,” he said. “After today, it’s just move on.” He confirmed he wants the quickest possible reset: “For sure. I want to get back out there, turn the page, and have a fresh start as we prepare for October.” There was no defiance in the tone—just urgency and a pitcher’s short memory. Any fix has to be immediate and has to happen in the zone.
That last point is where process meets result. Scott’s self-scouting aligned with Dave Roberts’ critique that he leaned too heavily on the slider and never established the fastball threat. When hitters can sit soft and eliminate hard, the chase flips: the pitcher starts nibbling, the count slips behind, and the stress pitches arrive middle-middle. Scott didn’t frame it that clinically, but his words amounted to the same diagnosis—execution and count leverage vanished at the first pitch. The hit-by-pitch and the walk were the gateway; everything after that felt inevitable.
It’s worth remembering why the Dodgers believed in this version of Scott in the first place. When he’s right, the slider is wipeout and the fastball has enough late carry to force defensive swings at the top rail. The recipe is simple, even if the execution is not: get strike one with the heater, expand with the slider, and finish. The ninth on Tuesday inverted that order, and Arizona punished the predictability.
Of course, September doesn’t offer a lab to tinker in. The bullpen has to find answers at game speed with the standings in play. Scott’s vow to “move on” is necessary; it just isn’t sufficient. The immediate test is conviction—pounding the zone with the fastball early, trusting the slider as a finisher, and avoiding the free passes that turn sacrifice plays into tying runs and medium-depth flies into heartbreak.
Scott didn’t run from the responsibility. “It’s got to end tonight,” he said. “Tomorrow’s a new day.” For the Dodgers, the hope is that tomorrow’s first pitch comes from a reliever who learned everything Tuesday tried to teach: establish the heater, attack counts, and make the ninth feel like a formality again. In late September, that’s the only page to turn.
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