Barnes applies final touch
A pinch-hit double wins it in 10th inning after Urias throws six no-hit innings.
For the first three hours and 37 minutes of Tuesday’s game, Dodgers catcher Austin Barnes stayed occupied inside the dugout. He made his one at-bat, his one minute, count for plenty. Barnes smashed a pinch-hit, game-winning RBI double in the 10th inning to play the late-night hero in a 4-3 victory over Pittsburgh.
Barnes pounced on a 96mph fastball from Pirates reliever Daniel Hudson and sent it into the gap between center field and right. As the ball rolled to the wall, pinchhitter Ross Stripling sprinted from first. Sent into the game to run for Yasmani Grandal, Stripling met a crowd of giddy Dodgers at the plate.
It was the final stroke of a night that contained multitudes. In the ninth, the Dodgers (19-14) staged a comeback against Pirates closer Tony Watson. Singles by Corey Seager and Justin Turner opened the door for rookie Cody Bellinger, who threaded an RBI hit through
the right side of the infield to tie the game.
The rally pushed the game into extra innings, and removed the sting from earlier in the night. For the first time in his professional career, Julio Urias carried himself into the seventh inning of a start. He did so because he did not allow a hit during the first six innings, which placed manager Dave Roberts in a familiar bind, one he traversed with Rich Hill and Stripling in 2016.
Urias offered Roberts a reprieve from one horror, but induced a different sort of fright. Leading off the seventh, Pittsburgh’s Andrew McCutchen laced a groundrule double into the left-field corner. There was little time to exhale. Andrew Toles jammed his leg into the wall while tracking the baseball, an injury that removed him from the game and ignited a chain that led to the disappearance of the lead.
Enrique Hernandez replaced Toles in the field. After one more batter, Sergio Romo replaced Urias on the mound. Hernandez and Romo combined to torpedo Urias’ evening. Romo surrendered a sizzling liner to Pirates catcher Francisco Cervelli. As the ball flew into left field, Hernandez took a knee to smother it. The ball bounced past him instead, giving Pittsburgh a run and a runner at second base. Cervelli scored when Max Moroff hit a flare into center field off reliever Luis Avilan.
The bullpen combustion carried into the eighth. Pedro Baez yielded a solo home run to pinch-hitter John Jaso, which laid the groundwork for the drama of the ninth.
Urias had given up only one run in his first two starts this season. The organization still holds him to a high standard. On Tuesday afternoon, Roberts expressed his concern about Urias’ strikeout-to-walk ratio. Urias had walked eight batters in 102⁄3 innings and struck out only five.
“You look at the ERA — it looks good,” Roberts said. “But I think we all know, and Julio knows, especially, that it needs to be better.”
Roberts credited Urias for a preternatural ability to evade danger. The pitcher makes mistakes, Roberts conceded. But he avoids compounding them.
Urias displayed that quality in the second inning and again in the third. He started the second by issuing a leadoff walk to Gregory Polanco. Urias responded by retiring the next three batters.
In the third, Urias extended an inning by making a gaffe. He fumbled a grounder tapped back toward the mound by Josh Harrison. Urias wriggled free when the next batter, shortstop Jordy Mercer, lined a changeup into Yasiel Puig’s glove in right.
Unlike Monday, when the Dodgers pilloried overmatched spot starter Trevor Williams, Pittsburgh countered Urias with a worthy foe. Ivan Nova entered the game leading the National League in walks plus hits allowed per inning. He had walked one batter in 42 innings.
Nova preys on overzealous batters. The Dodgers chipped away at him in the first few frames.
Turner became the second batter to take a walk against Nova in 2017. Joc Pederson and Puig hit singles in the second.
In the fourth, the Dodgers bruised Nova in unlikely fashion. It started with a walk by Bellinger — meaning the Dodgers doubled Nova’s walk total from his first six starts. With Bellinger at first, Yasmani Grandal came to the plate.
Grandal supplied 27 home runs in 2016. No catcher in baseball hit more. Yet he entered Tuesday with only three homers and a subpar .382 slugging percentage. Roberts pinpointed a skittish approach as the culprit. Grandal, he explained, was “too aggressive.”
In his first at-bat, Grandal had popped up the first pitch he saw. He was more patient this time. He passed on a pair of fastballs, forcing Nova to challenge him inside the zone. Grandal volleyed the pitch beyond the fence in right-center field.
Urias kept the lead safe until the seventh. His teammates stranded runners in scoring position in the seventh and the eighth. The ninth was different.