A perplexing loss within 14-run victory
McCullers’ injury may create a rare opening in rotation
LOS ANGELES — In one fleeting, frustrating flurry — a 45-second meeting of three men on the mound of a hallowed ballpark the Astros have overtaken — uncertainty finally enveloped baseball’s best rotation.
Before he could throw a pitch in the fifth inning of Saturday night’s 14-0 win, Lance McCullers Jr. removed his glove, pointed toward his elbow and trudged toward the Astros’ dugout, finished after 60 pitches with what the team called “right elbow discomfort.” He hung his head while shuffling toward the clubhouse.
Brad Peacock furiously warmed up in the background. Circumstance forced him to the bullpen. Colin McHugh, too — two starting pitchers who, for the season’s first four months, were not required in this previously unbending rotation.
None of the five men who comprise it have missed their turn to pitch, an absurd statistic which now lies in grave peril.
If the uniformity is interrupted and McCullers’ injury requires a lengthy rehabilitation, both McHugh and Peacock will be contemplated to fill in. First, on Saturday, they were required to capture a series against their World Series adversary.
Staked to a tenuous one-run lead against the National League’s most potent offense, Peacock struck out four of the six men he encountered. All three Dodgers to see him in that frenzied fifth inning succumbed to a punchout, unable to diagnose Peacock’s purring slider. He threw 12 of them across the two inning-stint. Five were swung on and missed.
McHugh’s seventh was not as tidy. A four-run sixth inning by his offense did lend him ample cushion. He sandwiched walks of Justin Turner and Brian Dozier around a three-pitch strikeout of Matt Kemp.
Yasiel Puig stung a line drive to left field which Tony Kemp caught on a leap, ending McHugh’s outing in favor of Tony Sipp. Three pitches later, Cody Bellinger bounced out to Alex Bregman, extinguishing one of the scarce uprisings Los Angeles’ lavish lineup has experienced this weekend.
In the National League, only the Cubs have a better OPS than the Dodgers. Across all of the major leagues, only the Yankees have hit more home runs. Their trade deadline acquisitions of Manny Machado and Brian Dozier only invite more fear, entrenching this bruising bunch as baseball’s most feared everyday nine.
For the last 17 innings against them, the Astros’ pitching staff has not yielded a run. Since Joc Pederson hit a home run on the fourth pitch of Friday’s game, the Dodgers have placed one runner at third base.
Since Pederson’s home run, they have mustered seven hits. Just one — Chris Taylor’s thirdinning double on Saturday — went for extra bases.
The Astros encountered no such issue. Without Carlos Correa or Jose Altuve, they banged 13 hits. Josh Reddick and Yuli Gurriel had three apiece. Martin Maldonado, who entered mired in an 0-for-34 slump, had two.
Five arrived in a seven-run eighth inning, highlighted by Reddick’s mammoth three-run homer inside the ballpark he once called home. Marwin Gonzalez began the deluge with a solo shot in the second off Dodgers starter Kenta Maeda.
The Astros pursued Maeda prior to the 2016 season, when the decorated Japanese righthander departed his homeland to explore American baseball. Manager A.J. Hinch courted the touted foreigner with a lunch at Minute Maid Park.
It went for naught, but mutual affinity still exists. Maeda and his translator lingered near the first-base dugout before Friday’s game, reconnecting with the Astros’ manager.
Though familiarity existed, this was Maeda’s first start against the Astros. Each of the 52⁄3 innings he threw during the World Series was from the bullpen. He arrived armed with four pitches he mixed at will.
Across five innings, Gonzalez’s second-inning homer was Maeda’s lone blip. Three of the first six hitters he faced in the sixth struck doubles. His day was done. The Astros’ offense was not.
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