Dodgers don’t look much different in walk-off loss to Padres
SAN DIEGO — The Dodgers roster might look significantly different in the wake of five additions before Tuesday’s trade deadline.
But in a 6-5 walk-off loss to the San Diego Padres on Tuesday night, the team’s recent on-field scuffles seemed eerily unchanged.
Amid several weeks of blown leads and other close calls from the Dodgers’ overworked bullpen, the team squandered another late advantage in its series opener at Petco Park, when right-hander Blake Treinen gave up two solo home runs that tied the score in the bottom of the ninth inning.
Up to that point, the Dodgers had appeared to be cruising to their first post-deadline win.
They scored five runs in a first inning punctuated by Cavan Biggio’s two-run blast. They got a seven-inning, three-run start from staff ace Tyler Glasnow, his longest outing in more than a month.
The Dodgers made the move in the right direction in acquiring Jack Flaherty, a local kid who is experiencing a career rebirth, Bill Plaschke writes.
And when Treinen took the mound for the ninth-inning save, protecting a 5-3 lead, the Dodgers were on the verge of putting further distance between themselves and the second-place Padres, who had climbed back within 6½ games of their Southern California rivals in the National League West standings.
Instead, Manny Machado hit a leadoff dinger to left center. Jackson Merrill followed with a tying blast to right two batters later.
Then in the 10th, pinch-hitter Donovan Solano walked it off with a game-winning single against Alex Vesia, dropping the Dodgers to 11-12 since the start of July.
The good news for the Dodgers is that help is on the way.
Of the Dodgers’ five new players — starting pitcher Jack Flaherty, utilitymen Tommy Edman and Amed Rosario, outfielder Kevin Kiermaier and reliever Michael Kopech — only Kopech was with the team Tuesday. And manager Dave Roberts didn’t want to throw him into a late-game fire on his first day with the team.
Edman’s debut won’t come for at least a few weeks, as he is rehabbing from a sprained ankle. Rosario and Kiermaier were en route to join the team Tuesday, but will arrive this week. Flaherty will likely make his Dodgers debut this weekend during a series in Oakland.
In the meantime, the Dodgers — who also remained without Freddie Freeman, who is on the family emergency list — fell victim to a familiar fate, losing in walk-off fashion for the fourth time in the last three weeks, while blowing a five-run lead for the third time in 13 games.
“There’s obviously going to be some tough stretches,” Treinen, who also gave up a walk-off home run in Houston on Saturday, said of the bullpen’s recent struggles. “I don’t know if we really think much about it. It’s just the day of when it happens. It’s pretty frustrating.”
The Dodgers were up 5-0 after a first inning in which Gavin Lux hit a sacrifice fly, Andy Pages added a two-run single to center field and Biggio belted his two-run homer to right, his second long ball in the last three games.
The Padres chipped away against Glasnow, using a solo homer from Machado in the second and RBI knocks from Jurickson Profar and Jake Cronenworth in the third to get back within 5-3.
The score remained unchanged until the ninth, when Treinen — whose fastball velocity has been down in his return from shoulder surgery this season, averaging just 94 mph — grooved a 94.5 mph sinker to Machado that the former Dodgers infielder crushed into the left-field seats.
“Probably the worst sinker I threw all night,” Treinen said. “And he’s a great player, so put a good swing on it.”
Treinen was more frustrated with Merrill’s tying blast, which came on a cutter off the inside of the plate.
“I’m not going to try to reinvent the wheel,” Treinen said about how he has compensated for his drop in velocity this year. “I know who I am. They give me lanes to be successful. It just comes down to execution.”
In the 10th inning, Vesia encountered similar issues.
For a second straight outing, the left-hander’s velocity was down, averaging just 92 mph with his heater. Vesia’s lack of command also hurt him, as a leadoff walk (plus an intentional walk after a sacrifice bunt) contributed to a bases-loaded jam.
With Solano, a right-handed pinch-hitter, up at the plate, Roberts tried to summon former closer Evan Phillips from the bullpen. However, pitching coach Mark Prior had just completed a mound visit with Vesia. (Prior routinely goes to the mound whenever a pinch-hitter enters the game.) When Roberts emerged from the dugout, umpires sent him back, citing an MLB rule that prevents two mound visits in the same at-bat.
Three pitches later, the game was over, after Solano rolled a ground ball down the third-base line for a walk-off single — moving the Padres, who have won eight of nine, within 5½ games of the Dodgers in the NL West standings.
Another win in the series finale Wednesday, and the Padres will be just 4½ games back of the Dodgers, potentially their narrowest margin atop the division since early May.
“They made some additions, they’re feeling good, they’re playing great baseball,” Roberts said. “Probably, month of July, they’ve played as good of baseball as anybody in all of the Major Leagues. They’re certainly feeling good about themselves, absolutely. We got [Dylan] Cease tomorrow, so we’ve got our hands full again.”
Freeman update
Roberts said Tuesday that he doesn’t expect Freeman, who left the club over the weekend to handle a medical situation with his 3-year-old son, to rejoin the Dodgers until at least this weekend’s series in Oakland — though there remains no firm timeline for when the first baseman might return.
“We have the off day after this series and we’ll revisit,” Roberts said. “To be quite honest, I haven’t even broached that subject of him coming back. I just don’t feel it’s right.”
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