Steve Webb
Game 78, 6/21/2024: Dodgers 2, Angels 3
CHAVEZ RAVINE, CA — Shohei Ohtani must have felt like he was back on the Angels on Friday night. He had a great game, hit a mammoth home run, and his team still lost. Seems like old times, right? In yet another tight game, the Dodgers were unable to overcome some sloppy pitching in the middle innings and ended up losing to the (Los Angeles) Angels by a score of 3-2 in ten innnings. This breaks a ten-game winning streak against the Dodgers’ Orange County neighbors.
Because of all the injuries to the rotation, Landon Knack was once again called up from Oklahoma to make a spot start in this one, and he acquitted himself quite nicely. He didn’t overpower anybody, but he kept the Angels hitters guessing all night, and went five scoreless innings before turning the ball over to the bullpen. His final line for the night: 5.0 IP, 0 ER 2 H 2 BB 2 K. Over five starts with the big club, Knack has a nifty 2.10 ERA. Given the ineffectiveness of Walker Buehler and the injury to Yamamoto, could we be seeing more of Knack in the rotation going forward? It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.
The Dodgers matched up against lefty Patrick Sandoval in this one, but due to an early injury, it ended up being more like a bullpen game for the Angels. Sandoval left after just 2.1 innings of work, and it was up to the Dodgers to score against the Halos’ pen.They did just that in the bottom of the fifth. With Knack already on the bench receiving handshakes and attaboys from his teammates, the Dodgers finally were able to break the scoreless tie.
After reliever Matt Moore tallied two quick outs, Austin Barnes ripped a single off the glove of shortstop Zach Neto to extend the inning for new leadoff man Shohei Ohtani. Ohtani, facing his former team for the first time in the regular season, had already reached on a couple of walks, but now he finally gave the Dodger Stadium faithful something to cheer about.
He absolutely crushed a middle-middle four-seam fastball and sent it flying toward straightaway center. Back, back, back it went, way over the fence, over the batter’s eye until it landed God knows how many rows back in the pavilion. With an exit velocity of 113 mph, the ball had traveled 455 feet when it finally landed, making it the third longest home run at Dodger Stadium in the Statcast era. The blast put Landon Knack in line for his second big league victory.
Unfortunately, it was not to be. For in the very next inning, the usually reliable Ryan Yarbrough started plunking people with the baseball. It was the most pathetic way imaginable to give up two runs: HBP, single, K, HBP, HBP to score a run, RBI groundout. Blech! Yarbrough didn’t get the loss in this one, but that inning has to rank among the most frustrating of his career. It was the first time a Dodger pitcher has hit three batters in the same inninng since Jeff Weaver turned that trick against the Braves in 2004. Yarbrough would go another inning and change, but the damage had been done. The game headed into the final innings deadlocked at two apiece.
Offensively, other than Ohtani, the Dodgers just couldn’t get anything going against the Angel pitchers. With Will Smith on the bench and Mookie Betts on the IL, the Dodgers’ batting order was pretty anemic: singles from Austin Barnes, Chris Taylor and Miguel Vargas. And that was just about it. So the final innings went by pretty quickly, and suddenly, we found ourselves heading into extras.
Anthony Banda, who had pitched the ninth, got the ball in the tenth with Jo Adell the free runner at second base. Nolan Schanuel led off by bunting Adell to third, which pushed Dave Roberts to head to the mound for a pitching change. Closer Evan Phillips came in to pitch his third time in four days. He induced a harmless groundout to second from infielder Luis Rengifo for the second out of the inning, so only needed one additional out to get his teammates off the field with the score tied. He got behind Angels leftfielder Taylor Ward 2-0 before battling back to even the count at 2-2.
Then, the pitch that cost the Dodgers the game, a sweeper out over the middle of the plate. Ward pounced on the pitched at ripped it past Kike Hernandez at third base to give the Angels their first lead of the night. Phillips retired the side, but the Dodgers came up in the bottom of the inning needing at least one to keep the game alive.
That one run never came. Jason Heyward had a productive out to move pinch runner Cavan Biggio to third, but that was as far as he would get. Kiké Hernández struck out on a chase pitch out of the zone from Halos closer Carlos Estévez. Then, with Will Smith stretching with a bat in the dugout, presumably to hit for catcher Austin Barnes in the nine hole, Gavin Lux stepped up representing the last hope for the Dodgers on the night. Estévez fed Lux a steady diet of high hard ones, and got a swinging strike three to end the game. Final score, Angels 3, Dodgers 2.
It was a crummy way to lose a game, but maybe the baseball gods were evening the ledger after that ridiculous win in Colorado. Oh well. Back to the drawing board on Saturday night as the Dodgers wrap up this quick two-gamer with the Angels. It’ll be Tyler Glasnow against recently added Zach Plesac (1-0, 4.50 ERA, 1 SO), who will be making only his second start of the year. On paper, it’s a mismatch and a Dodgers W, but you don’t just play the game on paper, right. We’ll have to see how things turn out on the field on Saturday.
Then, after a rare off day on Sunday, the Dodgers will open up against the truly horrible Chicago White Sox on the Southside on Monday before heading to San Francisco to finish the month with a weekend series at Oracle Park. It’s a very soft part of the schedule, and the Dodgers would be well advised to bank as many wins as they can before heavy hitters like the Phillies and the Brewers show up in town next month. Make hay while the sun shines, boys, make hay while the sun shines!
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