LAST CALL BLUES
For second straight night, Dodgers falter at the end in loss to Marlins
MIAMI >> The Clevelander is no more. The musicthumping nightclub with its pool and scantily-clad waitresses once located beyond the left field wall at (now) Loan Depot Park is closed, a victim either of the pandemic or Derek Jeter’s more corporate-minded stewardship of the Miami franchise.
But it’s still possible to leave the stadium filled with late-night regrets.
For the second consecutive night, the Dodgers’ bullpen surrendered a tie-breaking run in the late innings. Monday, Victor Gonzalez gave up the gamewinning home run in the eighth inning. Tuesday, a wild pitch and a throwing error by Will Smith allowed the winning run to score in the 10th inning as the Dodgers lost to the Miami Marlins, 2-1.
“It’s just one of those freak plays,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “That play ended the game but it certainly didn’t lose the game. We had many chances to win the game.”
The caliber of play in Miami has not been good — even with the defending champions visiting. Tuesday’s game dragged on for 4-1/2 hours despite
the limited offense. The Dodgers have made three errors, allowed five stolen bases and stranded 25 runners on base while losing back-to-back games (onerun decisions each) to start the four-game series in Miami.
“Not good,” Roberts said to those numbers. “I think the little things certainly are not little in the context of winning baseball games. we’re just not doing them well. When you give teams extra outs, extra bases, it’s tough to win a big-league ballgame.”
With a bullpen game already planned for today, the Dodgers burned through six relievers in Tuesday’s loss. Some games are born bullpen games. Others grow into it.
This one became one because the Dodgers couldn’t score after the fourth inning.
Tony Gonsolin held the Marlins scoreless into the sixth inning, pitching a season-high 5 1/3 innings in his sixth appearance since returning from a shoulder injury that sidelined him for the first two months of the season.
Gonsolin allowed just two hits and a walk. Only one of the baserunners made it past first — Marlins starter Pablo Lopez, a career .125 hitter with one hit in his first 29 at-bats this season (.034), who lashed a double into the right field corner with one out in the third inning.
Lopez did pretty well in his day job as well, holding the Dodgers to one run in his four innings.
They had to work for even that much. Cody Bellinger extended his at-bat leading off the fourth against Lopez to 12 pitches before he dropped a sinking line drive into right field. Garrett Cooper charged it and came up empty, the ball bouncing through him and to the fence as Bellinger raced to third.
Smith immediately cashed in the mistake with an RBI single. The Dodgers went on to load the bases that inning but Mookie Betts struck out to end the threat (one of his three strikeouts Tuesday).
The Dodgers didn’t score again.
Gonsolin carried that 1-0 lead for one out into the sixth inning when Roberts pulled him after 72 pitches. With a bullpen game looming today, Roberts made a surprising choice in such a high-leverage situation, bringing soft-tossing righthander Jake Reed to protect a one-run lead in the 28-year-old’s major-league debut.
With Reed side-arming sliders at 81 mph most of the time, the Marlins exploited the Dodgers’ defensive deficiencies for the second consecutive game. Starling Marte beat out an infield single, then quickly stole second base.
Reed struck out Cooper on an 81-mph slider that never threatened the strike zone. But Jesus Aguilar hit a 102-mph two-hop bullet towards Gavin Lux at shortstop. With Marte running in front of him, Lux whiffed on the grounder and Marte scored the tying run as the ball went into left field.
“Gavin said it took a bad hop,” Roberts said of the play, originally scored an error then later changed to a base hit. “He thought it might have clipped the runner ... and it just kind of changed directions. He said he was there and it took a turn. Just didn’t come up with it.”
Blake Treinen came in to get the Dodgers out of a bases-loaded situation in the ninth. But a hard-biting slider to Miguel Rojas with two outs got away from Smith, allowing the extra runner to go to third. When Smith scrambled to retrieve the ball, he threw in the dirt to third base, where it went through Turner’s legs. By the time Lux retrieved it near the third-base dugout and threw wildly home, Marte had scored the winning run.
“I thought I actually picked it (out of the dirt). The ball squirted away,” said Smith, who did check his glove before pursuing the ball. “When I got to it, I saw Marte was halfway. Make a good throw and he’s out.
“In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have thrown it. But, yeah — it happens.”