Steve Webb
SAN DIEGO, CA — It’s not so fun when it’s your team that’s doing the imploding, is it? One night after the Padres’ snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, the Dodgers returned the favor on Saturday, giving up seven runs in a comically bad bottom of the eighth inning and handing San Diego an 8-3 home victory. It. Was. Not. Pretty.
First the good news, and to be honest there was a lot of good news in this game. Michael Grove bounced back nicely and pitched great as the opener. New Dodger Ryan Yarbrough only gave up one run (a Machado homer) in his L.A. debut. And the offense proved it could get to Blake Snell, something almost nobody has been able to do this year. So, it the game had been only seven innings long, it would have been an unqualified success.
However, there is a reason they play nine in the big leagues. And, the game was just too long for the Dodgers in this one. Yency Almonte came in to start the 8th inning, and he just didn’t have any command in this one. He gave up a leadoff single to Gary Sanchez on an 0-2 count, and then after a Trent Grisham strikeout, things started to go south on him.
He gave up back-to-back walks to Ha Seong Kim and Fernando Tatis Jr. to load up the bases and that was the end of his night. Caleb Ferguson was called on to douse the fire, but instead brought a ten-gallon drum of gasoline to the mound. He induced a weak groundball from Juan Soto to second base. However, instead of conceding the run and maintaining the lead, Kike Hernandez made an extremely ill-advised throw to first. Not really to first. More like a throw to the camera well. The ball went out of ball, and the game was suddenly tied.
Manny Machado singled to make it 5-3 Padres, but the fun for Ferguson was just getting started. After a Xander Bogaerts flyout, he threw away a pickoff play (the second error of the inning), and Machado was able to scamper to third. A single from Jake Cronenworth scored Machado. Then, another single, a walk, and another single scored two more. At this point, the ref should have called the fight. Instead, Dave Roberts could only take the ball from Ferguson and get Alex Vesia to come in and retire the Ha Seong Kim to end the inning.
In the ninth, James Outman singled but was erased on a double play, and one out later the game was over. The whole thing was a big, heaping mound of Yuck.
“A team like that, any team, if you’re going to give them free bases, you’re going to give up bases by not making plays and things like that,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said after the fiasco. “It was really uncharacteristic. But, unfortunately, it was the end to a really good night through seven innings.”
And that was the understatement of the season.
The Dodgers try to get back on the horse on Sunday Night Baseball. Hopefully, the embarrassment of this loss might motivate them to actually win a game on Sunday, something they haven’t done in a couple of months. We shall see. New Dodger Lance Lynn takes the mound against former Dodger Rich Hill, who is making his Padres debut. And this might be one game where the ESPN censor has to have his finger very close to the dump button all night long, as these two guys are probably two of the most “demonstrative” pitchers in the game. Should be an entertaining night of baseball, and the quicker the Dodgers can get memories of that 8th inning out of their heads, the better. First pitch on Sunday is 4:10 pm.
