Given the shorthanded state of the Dodgers’ current pitching staff, losses like Wednesday are the ones that hurt the most.
Seeking to end their East Coast trip with a three-game sweep against the Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field, the Dodgers got a productive five-inning, one-run start out of Clayton Kershaw in his third outing back from offseason foot and knee surgeries.
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They had a late-game lead on a day an ominous rainy forecast never came to fruition.
Most of all, they had most of their top current relievers available, able to call upon names they trusted over the final few innings.
Dodgers relief pitcher Alex Vesia walks to the dugout after the eighth inning against the Cleveland Guardians Wednesday in Cleveland. (David Dermer / Associated Press)
Such a perfect alignment has been rare for the Dodgers lately. Which means, when it does come around, “we’ve got to win these games,” manager Dave Roberts said.
Instead, the Dodgers lost 7-4 to the Guardians on Wednesday, wasting Kershaw’s five-inning outing with a five-run meltdown in the bottom of the eighth inning.
Struggling closer Tanner Scott gave up the inning’s first two runs on three ground ball singles and a walk, squandering a 4-2 lead for his fifth blown save of the season. Left-hander Alex Vesia then yielded the deciding blow, serving up a three-run blast to Angel Martínez to drop the Dodgers to a 3-3 record on this New York-Cleveland swing.
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“It’s sour in the sense of, you win the first two [games of this series] and you catch a lead going into the eighth inning,” Roberts said. “You feel good about the game. I thought we did enough to win. But unfortunately that eighth inning got away from us.”
And quickly, at that.
Leading 4-2 entering the frame, Scott took the mound for his second inning of work, Roberts seeking an up-down outing from his recently up-and-down closer.
Scott’s appearance had started well, with the left-hander striking out Gabriel Arias to escape a jam he inherited in the seventh inning.
But, in what became his third rough outing out of the last five, he failed to limit damage as a threat began to brew.
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Jhonkensy Noel led off the frame with a ground ball up the middle, after second baseman Kiké Hernández got to it in the hole but had no chance to make a throw. Will Wilson followed that with a spinning three-hopper up the third base line, its awkward bounce off the edge of the infield grass tripping up Max Muncy for another infield single.
Read more: Max Muncy, Michael Conforto come alive on offense as Dodgers defeat Guardians
Scott hurt his own cause from there, walking Daniel Schneemann in a left-on-left matchup to load the bases.
And though he fanned Austin Hedges for the first out of the inning, Nolan Jones hit a one-out roller that found a hole through the left side of a shifted infield. Two runs came around to score. A lead the Dodgers had held since the fourth inning had suddenly evaporated.
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“I think at the crux is, when you get count leverage, we’re just not able to put guys away with the strikeout,” Roberts said of Scott, who had Jones to two strikes before throwing a slider that caught the outer edge of the plate.
“Leaving middle spin sliders in the zone for them to put the ball in play, I think that when you do that, sometimes the ball finds holes or some outfield grass,” Roberts added. “It’s something that we’ve seen all year. There’s great strike-throwing, getting count leverage. But just that last pitch to put guys away … That’s what we’ve got to kind of unlock and be consistent with.”
The final blow came in the next at-bat, when Vesia entered the game and quickly fell behind 2-and-0 to Martínez. Vesia tried to get back in the count with a fastball up in the zone. Martínez instead delivered a knockout blow, belting a three-run homer to left to complete the Guardians’ five-run rally.
“Tried to throw him two changeups and they were not very good, [and] the fastball was right down the middle,” Vesia said. “Just gotta be better in those situations.”
Dodgers relief pitcher Tanner Scott reacts after giving up a two-RBI single to the Guardians’ Nolan Jones during the eighth inning Wednesday in Cleveland. (David Dermer / Associated Press)
Two of the runs were credited to Scott, whose ERA ballooned to 4.62 just months removed from his $72-million signing with the team.
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For Vesia, meanwhile, it marked the seventh home run he has surrendered this season, matching his full-season totals from each of the last two years.
“Just my misses have been bad,” Vesia said. “That’s pretty much it. Just gotta keep going and execute pitches a little bit better.”
The ending left Kershaw with a no-decision; despite him getting through five innings on a day he navigated traffic, limited damage and overcame what he called “some bad habits” in his delivery.
“I’m fighting some stuff mechanically,” said Kershaw, who gave up six hits and two walks while striking out only three. “I was able to make a few pitches here and there to get through five. But obviously wasn’t pitching good enough to be able to stay in the game, which makes the bullpen have to throw more innings, and sometimes stuff like this happens.”
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It also didn’t help that Kershaw’s last start on Friday in New York was shortened by a rain delay to just two innings, prompting an early hook from Roberts after just 74 pitches.
“I thought the last couple innings got a little bit better,” Roberts said, adding: “I felt at that point in time he did enough to help us win a game.”
That much, he did, the Dodgers leading 2-1 when Kershaw exited at the start of the sixth (in the fourth inning, Will Smith had an RBI double and Andy Pages an RBI single) and 4-1 by the seventh-inning stretch (Freddie Freeman had an RBI single in the sixth, before Hernández doubled and scored on a wild pitch in the seventh).
Alas, right-handed Lou Trivino gave up one run in the bottom of the seventh before being relieved by Scott. And in the eighth, everything fell apart on a day the Dodgers — despite all their injury absences at the moment — seemed to be building momentum. “It’s still a .500 road trip, which I think going into it we would have banked,” Roberts said. “But losing this one kind of how we did … we’re not used to giving up games late as far as the bullpen. There’s things that we’ve just got to keep kind of trying to figure out and get better.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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