Steve Webb
CHAVEZ RAVINE, CA — Let’s face it. The 2023 Dodgers are not a good baseball team right now. They may eventually turn out to be one, once the rotation gets back to full strength and the front office makes some moves at the deadline. But right now, they are who they are: a team that gets not just swept, but pretty much blown out of the water in three games against the Giants. After Emmet Sheehan came out of the game with the Dodgers leading 4-0 in the 6th inning on Friday night, the Giants basically pulled out the can of whup-ass on them, outscoring them 29-4. The latest indignity came on Sunday afternoon, a 7-3 loss to Logan Webb.
For the early going anyway, it looked like we were in for a pitchers’ duel on Sunday. Tony Gonsolin was perfect the first time through the Giants’ batting order. But in the top of the fourth, things started to unravel a bit. It started the way a lot of bad innings do: with a walk. But this time, Gonsolin doubled down on the damage by hitting the next batter with a pitch. Gifted with two free base runners, the Giants played some good situational baseball. They moved the runners over on a flyout, scored one on a sacrifice fly, and then another on a a single. Two runs on one hit. Not ideal if your the Dodgers.
Then in the fifth the Giants got another run on a productive out, but it was the sixth inning where the wheels really came off the apple cart for Gonsolin. The Dodgers had clawed their way back into the ballgame, scoring single runs in the 4th and 5th to make it a 3-2 game, but that was as close as things would get the rest of the day.
In the top of the sixth, Gonsolin started the trouble with yet another lead-off walk, this one to Thairo Estrada. And even though Estrada would end up getting erased by a great defensive play from Mookie at shortstop, that free baserunner put the rally in motion. Gonsolin gave up back-to-back doubles Mike Yastrzemski and Luis Matos to plate a couple of runs. Two more singles in the inning scored two more, and with that Gonsolin’s goose was pretty much cooked. It was the worst start of Tony’s young career: 5.2 IP, 6 H, 7 R, 3 BB 7 K.
“My execution really just suffered after that third inning,” Gonsolin said after the game. “Balls left up in the zone. They got some soft hits that kind of just fell down and some hard hits that helped. Overall the execution really just wasn’t there.”
Though the Dodgers made it interesting in the ninth by scoring a run and loading the bases, they just couldn’t get a clutch hit to get them over the hump in this one, and had to end the game on a harmless J.D. Martinez flyout to right. The Dodgers ended the day just 2-for-13 with runners in scoring position, compared to 5-for-13 from the Giants, and those extra three knocks by the Giants proved to be the difference in the ballgame.
“Every day we are trying to win a game and we’re not doing it right now,” Freeman said. “So there’s no extra motivation. We’re not just playing very good. So when you don’t play very good, this is what happens. Off-day tomorrow, we need to figure it out by Tuesday and you start getting going, because this stretch can’t keep going.”
This is about as bad a stretch as the Dodgers have played in the last five years. More and more this team is looking like the 2018 version of the Dodgers, one that struggled mightily in the first half after being historically good the year before. That team ended up getting their act together and winning the division and the pennant before falling to the Red Sox in the World Series. Does this team have that kind of finish in them when Dave Roberts has to go to the whip down the stretch this year? We shall see. That’s a long way off. For now, there are more questions than answers.
It’s a day off on Monday, and then a quick two-gamer down in Anaheim before a big weekend series with the rival Astros, which is always good for some fun. Clayton Kershaw gets the ball in Tuesday’s game, 7:10 start time. He’ll match up against fellow lefty Reid Detmers (1-5, 4.48).
