Steve Webb
Game 55, 5/26/2024: Dodgers 1, Reds 4
CINCINNATI, OH — You know, I’ve had better weekends as a Dodgers fan, to be quite honest. Once again, the Dodgers hitters were stymied by Cincinnati Reds pitching all afternoon, and once the rain-interrupted contest got rolling again, it was too little too, late as the Dodgers fell to the Reds 4-1. It was LA’s fifth straight loss. So, yeah, not great.
Dodger starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto looked like he was off to a good day at the ballpark, getting three strikeouts in the bottom of the first and then pitching a scoreless second. However, in the third, the guy was singled to death. After striking out Will Benson to begin the frame, Yoshi gave up a single to leadoff hitter Jacob Hurtubise and a walk to speedster Elly De La Cruz. Then, a force on the lead runner made it a first-and-second, two-out situation. And it looked like Yamamoto might escape unscathed.
He did not. Jake Fraley, Jonathan India, and Nick Martini each hit run scoring singles, and by the time Yamamoto got the Dodgers back to the bat rack, it was 4-0 Reds. Yeesh, as Walker Buehler would say, but not in a good way. Actually, Yamamoto had a pretty decent day other than the third inning hiccup. He would throw two more scoreless innings and strike out eight Reds before the game was stopped by rain. His final line for the day: 5.0 IP, 6 H, 4 ER, 2 BB, 8 K.
Just as the problem on Saturday was NOT Walker Buehler, the problem on Sunday was NOT Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Rather, the blame for this L lies directly on the shoulders of the Dodgers’ slumping hitters. Until they pushed across a run in the the ninth on a Freddie Freeman double, the Dodgers had gone fifteen straight innings without scoring a single run. That seems sub-optimal. But it’s hardly surprising when the 5-9 hitters in the lineup go 0-for-16 on the day and the top of the lineup only has five hits all afternoon. Teoscar Hernandez went 2-for-4, and Freddie Freeman’s run scoring double was nice, but that is about it.
So the mighty Dodgers have experienced their first sweep of the year. To a sub-.500 team no less. And, don’t look now, but the Giants are surging behind them. A week ago, the Giants were 9.5 out. And now, with simultaneous streaks in the opposite directions, the Dodgers only lead the NL West by a mere 5.5 games.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s better to be in first place than NOT be in first place, but this team is just not looking good this week. Yikes. The Dodgers pull into New York this evening to begin a three-game set with the equally struggling Mets on Monday. Having just lost a home series to the Giants, the Metropolitans are losers of seven of their last ten games.
It’s going to be a bunch of early starters for fans on the West Coast. Gavin Stone gets Monday’s game with a 1:10 PDT first pitch. Game Two with Tyler Glasnow on the mound gets underway at 4:10 PDT, and the series finale will be James Paxton‘s chance to finish off the series right at 1:10 PDT on Wednesday. After that, it’s back to the Ravine for the Rockies and then on the road again for the Pirates and red-hot Yankees.
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