Dodger Stadium was eerily quiet for a lot of Monday evening. And never simply because entire sections of the higher deck sat largely empty.
In a 9-5 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Dodgers didn’t simply drop their fourth straight sport, however turned in a efficiency that elicited as many boos as the rest at Chavez Ravine, stumbling to a season-worst shedding streak on an evening they did little proper in any aspect of the sport.
There was dangerous protection early. Within the first inning, middle fielder Hyeseong Kim misplaced a fly ball within the twilight sky, main to 2 runs that may have been unearned had it not been dominated a double. Within the second, third baseman Max Muncy spiked a throw to first on a slow-rolling grounder that led to a different preventable rating, although his miscue was additionally dominated a base hit.
The pitching wasn’t nice both. Left-handed opener Jack Dreyer adopted Muncy’s dangerous throw with a good wilder pitch to the backstop within the subsequent at-bat, advancing the runner to arrange an eventual sacrifice fly. Landon Knack took over within the third and promptly gave up a pair of two-run dwelling runs, one to Lourdes Gurriel Jr. on a down-and-in slider and one other to Gabriel Moreno on an inside fastball.
Even the few shiny spots offensively weren’t near being sufficient.
Mookie Betts hit two dwelling runs in his continued search to interrupt out of a sluggish begin. Shohei Ohtani retook sole possession of the key league lead in lengthy balls by whacking his seventeenth of the season. However all three blasts got here with nobody on base. And so they represented the Dodgers’ solely hits of the evening in opposition to Arizona right-hander Brandon Pfaadt, who was in any other case unbothered in a six-inning effort that included no strikeouts (or perhaps a single swing-and-miss from a Dodgers hitter) however loads of advantageous performs from an athletic protection behind him.
The Dodgers’ solely different scoring got here within the ninth, when a two-run rally proved a lot too little, a lot too late.
Whereas shaky protection and inconsistent manufacturing on the plate have been bugaboos for the Dodgers (29-19), it’s the staff’s more and more pitching struggles which have stood out most throughout this four-game skid — the membership’s longest since shedding 5 in a row in late Could final season.
With the loss to the Diamondbacks (26-22), the Dodgers personal a staff ERA of 4.28, which ranks twenty second within the majors and is their highest at this level in a marketing campaign since 2010.
The primary root of the issue is straightforward to establish. Starters Tyler Glasnow, Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki stay on the injured record, forcing the membership into plans akin to Monday with a rookie in Dreyer opening for a depth arm in Knack. The bullpen has been shorthanded, too, with Blake Treinen, Evan Phillips and Kirby Yates all injured, as nicely.
Arizona’s Gabriel Moreno, proper, celebrates with teammate Josh Naylor after hitting a two-run dwelling run within the third inning Monday.
(Kyusung Gong / Related Press)
However within the meantime, the Dodgers have nonetheless anticipated extra from their presently wholesome group.
“We’ve got to start being more efficient, certainly from the starters, to give us an opportunity to get deeper into games,” Roberts mentioned.
And to try this, Roberts cited one place to start out.
“On first glance, we need to be better at getting ahead in counts,” he mentioned. “It doesn’t take a deep dive to see we start 1-and-0 quite often. When you do that, it makes pitching tough.”
Certainly, the Dodgers entered the evening twenty fourth within the majors with a 59.8% first-strike price, an issue Roberts believes has led to too many lengthy innings, and too massive a workload for the employees.
“The 30-pitch innings just don’t play. It’s not sustainable,” he mentioned. “And that starts with getting strike one. That ultimately goes to our entire pitching staff.”
The Dodgers have been higher in that space Monday, beginning 27 of 49 at-bats with a strike. However it didn’t assist. Dreyer wanted 38 pitches to get by way of his two innings. Knack threw 106 to get by way of the following 5 (together with 16 in a single at-bat to Moreno within the fifth).
And when lengthy reliever Matt Sauer took over within the eighth and gave up a two-run dwelling run to Geraldo Perdomo, a lot of a season-low (and atypically quiet) crowd of 41,372 started streaming for the exits, not sticking round for one of many Dodgers’ flattest showings this 12 months.
