Dodgers rout D-Backs, sweep doubleheader
LOS ANGELES — Merrill Kelly’s hat was propped up on his forehead, an exasperated look on his face. The Dodgers’ Edwin Rios had just delivered an early coup de grâce, making an already miserable start even worse for Kelly and an already brutal series even more painful for the Diamondbacks.
The Diamondbacks were steamrolled, 12-3, on Tuesday night, completing a doubleheader sweep at the hands of the Dodgers, who eked out a 7-6 victory earlier in the day. The Diamondbacks lost three games in roughly a 24-hour span — and the way things are going they could well lose for the fourth time in three days on Wednesday afternoon.
When the Diamondbacks took two of three from the Dodgers at Chase Field last month, they thought it might have been the series that turned around their season. After this visit to Dodger Stadium, they are in need of another turnaround. So far this week, the Diamondbacks have not pitched well and their defense has been unreliable at best and sloppy at worst.
The Diamondbacks’ starters on Tuesday had vastly different experiences. In the first game, left-hander Tyler Gilbert threw well for five innings before falling apart in the sixth, with manager Torey Lovullo admitting after he provided too long a leash. In the second game, Kelly struggled from the beginning, and unlike in previous outings never was able to get back on track.
When talking after the game about Kelly’s outing, Lovullo had a forgiving tone. It shifted when the topic turned to his defenders.
“We’re a young team and we did a lot of immature things today,” Lovullo said. “And we’ve got to tighten that up. I don’t care what venue it is. I don’t care where we’re playing, who we’re playing against. We’ve got to play better.”
The loss was the Diamondbacks’ fifth in a row. It dropped them under .500 for the first time in two weeks.
Kelly entered the day ranking among the better starters in baseball in the season’s first five weeks. But he gave up as many runs (eight) in two innings against the Dodgers as he had in 42 innings all season. He issued four walks, all of them turning into runs, including the last, an intentional pass to Freddie Freeman that backfired when Rios blasted a three-run shot to the opposite field with two out in the second inning.
“I pretty much, flat-out sucked today,” Kelly said. “Getting behind in counts. Missing pitches big. … With a team like that you can’t afford to get behind as much as I did. That’s what separates that team from everybody else. They control the zone and they don’t miss pitches when you put them over the plate.”
The Diamondbacks scored first in each of the series’ first three games. They led 2-0 on Monday and 3-0 on Tuesday afternoon. They grabbed another 2-0 lead on Tuesday night when Christian Walker and Jordan Luplow hit back-to-back homers in the top of the first.
But the Dodgers jumped on left-hander Madison Bumgarner in the fifth on Monday while taking advantage of a defensive miscue behind him. They piled on a tiring Gilbert on Tuesday afternoon. And they waited out Kelly, who had trouble throwing the ball over the plate and was hit hard when he did.
Kelly said he planned to review video of his outing and will be on the lookout for one of two things: either something wrong in his delivery or something he was doing to tip his pitches.
“Some of the pitches they hit were pretty decent and they put pretty good swings on them,” he said. “It could have been something I was doing. It could just be the fact that they’re a really good team.”
The Diamondbacks have been without shortstop Nick Ahmed, who is on the COVID injured list, for all three games of the series, and on Tuesday night they were without second baseman Ketel Marte, who was scratched with a sore left hand.
Lovullo said Marte had hoped to play through the injury but said before the game that he was having trouble gripping the bat. Lovullo said Marte was day-to-day.