LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers are piling up bad losses, and this time the slumping offense had company. Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed three home runs for the first time in Major League Baseball in a 6-2 loss to the San Francisco Giants on Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium.
The Dodgers have lost four consecutive games, all of them by at least four runs, the latter matching the franchise record, last done in 1936 by Brooklyn.
Yamamoto struck out eight and walked none through six innings, to that point allowing only four hits. Three of them were solo home runs, all hit with two outs, including two by Giants catcher Eric Haase. It’s the first time in 67 MLB appearances, including 66 starts that Yamamoto allowed three home runs. He had only allowed two home runs in a start five times, none this year before Tuesday.
San Francisco with those three home runs rank 28th among 30 teams with 30 home runs this season.
But at only 84 pitches through six innings, Yamamoto started the seventh. He was immediately greeted with a double by Heliot Ramos and a single by Willy Adames. One out later, Yamamoto left with those two runners on, in favor of Blake Treinen.
Drew Gilbert popped up a bunt that landed and wasn’t fielded cleanly by charging first baseman Freddie Freeman for one run, then Andy Pages made a leaping catch at the center field wall, eerily close to a third home run for Haase. Then Jung Hoo Lee doubled home two, adding the type of insurance runs the Dodgers can only dream of lately.
Failure to launch
Things looked promising in the first inning, loading the bases on two hits and a hit batter with one out.
Will Smith smashed a drive to the right field wall near the bullpen, and just like Max Muncy on Sunday was robbed by a fantastic catch. This time, Lee did the honors, which prevented multiple runs from scoring but at least Shohei Ohtani scored on the sacrifice fly.
“We do need to get better. We are not performing up to expectations,” manager Dave Roberts said of the offense before the game. “The work’s been consistent, the expectation for it to turn is important, too.
It was only one run, but it was at least something, including just the second time the Dodgers scored in the first inning in their last 13 games. And it marked the first time Los Angeles scored first in their last seven home games.
But they didn’t much else against Giants starter Adrian Houser, who entered Tuesday 121st in ERA (6.19) and 118th in xERA (5.53) among 132 major league pitchers with at least 30 innings. Opponents against Houser this season were hitting .298/.348/.543 entering Tuesday, but the Dodgers managed only two runs and three hits off him in 5 2/3 innings.
One positive is two of those three hits were by Ohtani, including a home run hit to left center field, his first long ball since April 26, with 52 plate appearances in between.
Before Tuesday’s game, Roberts said he planned to not start Ohtani at designated hitter in Thursday’s series finale, and after the game said Ohtani would also not hit on Wednesday as well in a game he’s pitching, after hitting .200/.321/.300 with a 76 wRC+ over his previous 23 games.
“Fatigue is bleeding into the mechanics,” Roberts said. “Most players get that toward the end of the summer. Now I’m learning with Shohei, it’s probably showing itself a little earlier, as far as the tax on pitching and all that comes with it, to the hitting, too.”
Baseball hinges on the battle between batter and pitcher, and Ohtani as a two-way player is involved in more of those interactions than any other player in the sport. He’s faced 145 batters as a pitcher this season and has now batted 185 times. That’s 330 total plate appearances for Ohtani, 36.3 percent more than the next-most, Miami Marlins ace Sandy Alcantara at 242 batters faced.
The Dodgers loaded the bases with one out again in the eighth inning, but Muncy struck out looking against southpaw Sam Hentges, followed by Pages flying out to left against right-hander Caleb Kilian. No runs cashed in.
The Dodgers offense has been held to three or fewer runs 10 times in their last 13 games, including each of their last five. Most of that stretch has come with pretty good pitching, but that hasn’t been the case during this current four-game losing streak, giving up seven, seven, nine, and six runs.
“It’s just unfortunate when you’re not putting up crooked numbers,” Roberts said. “It’s just hard when the margin is thin, and right now it’s been thin. It’s hard for the bullpen to be perfect, it really is.”
Tuesday particulars
Home runs: Shohei Ohtani (7); Erik Haase 2 (2), Harrison Bader (2)
WP — Adrian Houser (1-4): 5 2/3 IP, 3 hits, 2 runs, 3 walks, 4 strikeouts
LP — Yoshinobu Yamamoto (3-3): 6 1/3 IP, 6 hits, 5 runs, 8 strikeouts
Sv — Caleb Kilian (2): 1 1/3 IP, 1 strikeout
Up next
Shohei Ohtani will take the mound for his seventh pitching start of the season on Wednesday (7:10 p.m.; SportsNet LA, MLB Network), but he won’t hit. Left-hander Robbie Ray starts for San Francisco.
Read the full article here