Steve Webb
CHAVEZ RAVINE, CA — For a hot minute, it looked like the Dodger bullpen might have turned a corner. Yency Almonte came in relief of Clayton Kershaw and pitched an impressive 1-2-3 inning in the seventh and preserved the Dodgers’ 4-2 lead.
If only the game went seven innings. Because everything after that was awful. The White Sox, one of the worst offensive teams in baseball this year, got SIX runs over the final two frames of the ballgame and cruised to what turned out to be a relatively easy 8-4 victory. It was beyond frustrating.
Clayton Kershaw started this one, and while he didn’t have his best command, he fought his way to a quality start, surrendering only a couple of solo home runs, one to Jake Burger and the other to Luis Robert. There was traffic to be sure, but Kershaw is at his best when there are runners in scoring position. There was one nifty play with two out and a runner on third when he pounce on a little nubber in front of the mound and delivered a strike to first to save a run. It was a classic Kershaw moment.
But truth be told, Kersh got outpitched in this one by Mike Clevinger, who the Dodgers had pretty much had their way with when he was playing for San Diego. Clevinger, however, had to exit the game with an arm injury with two out in the fifth, and the Dodgers were able to pounce on the bullpen in the next inning.
The bottom of the 6th started off with a David Peralta infield hit. Then Chris Taylor and Jason Heyward hit back-to-back singles to move Peralta around to score the Dodgers first run. Miguel Vargas walked to load up the bases, and then Austin Barnes reached on a fielder’s choice in which Tim Anderson made a bad choice and tossed to second instead of getting the sure out at first. Vargas was safe on the play, and the inning continued for Mookie Betts.
Mookie came through with a clutch two-run single, but the rally stopped right there. The Dodgers ended the inning with a strikeout and a groundout, and they had to be satisfied with a 4-2 lead.
And for that seventh inning anyway, it looked like a two-run advantage would be enough. Then things, um, disintegrated.
In the top of the 8th, Almonte went out with the idea of facing two more hitters. Unfortunately those two hitters, Eloy Jimenez and Jake Burger, blasted the ball on him. Jimenez doubled to the gap, and Jake Burger drilled a game-tying home run off the foul pole in left. Ugh.
This brought on Alex Vesia, who quickly proceeded to plunk Andrew Benintendi with a pitch to put the go-ahead run on base. A wild pitch put Benintendi in scoring position, and he game around with the go-ahead run on a single by Clint Frazier. It was, not great. The White Sox would tack on three more runs in the 9th of Tayler Scott to secure the victory. It was a game that had manager Dave Roberts visibly frustrated in his postgame press conference.
“Very deflating. It’s very deflating,” he said after the game. “Clayton pitched his ass off [even though he didn’t] have a whole lot as far as stuff. … We took a lead and we gave it away.
“It’s very frustrating, and they have to do better,” Roberts continued. “It’s not workload. It’s not the wrong lanes or the right lanes, it’s they need to be better, period.”
Amen.
The Dodgers try to take the series with a Michael Grove start on Thursday. Then, it’s the suddenly relevant Giants coming into town for a big divisional match-up over the weekend. Let’s hope they can figure things out soon, because the D-backs aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.
