The Los Angeles Dodgers gave Juan Soto the easiest stolen base he’s ever going to achieve in his career.
The Padres beat the Dodgers 5-3 in Game 4 of the NLDS on Saturday night in San Diego to win the series. They were down 3-0 entering the bottom of the 7th but rallied for all five of their runs to take the lead for good.
The game was tied 3-3 with Soto on first and Ha-Seong Kim on third while there were two outs. Alex Vesia was facing Jake Cronenworth, and Soto decided to take off and test the Dodgers.
Rather than throw down to second or try to tag out Soto, the Dodgers just ignored him in order to focus on getting Cronenworth out. Soto wound up shuffling to second base.
The stolen base proved to be critical. Cronenworth lined a single to center to drive in two runs and put San Diego up 5-3.
The Dodgers just letting Soto take the base proved to be damaging. You can also question them for taking Tyler Anderson out so early, and for bringing in Vesia with a 1-0 count on Cronenworth.
The Dodgers are supposed to have a management team full of geniuses. But someone over there pulled a pitcher who was cruising and had only thrown 86 pitches in five innings. That’s not very smart.
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