Recap: Dodgers Bullpen Struggles In Loss To Pirates

The Los Angeles Dodgers overcame an early deficit but their bullpen wasn’t able to keep the Pittsburgh Pirates off the board late, resulting in a 9-7 loss to start the road trip.

Five Pirates batters reached base safely in the first inning before Clayton Kershaw recorded an out. He wasn’t particularly sharp, evident by back-to-back walks that followed a leadoff ground-rule double and loaded the bases.

Teoscar Hernández then failed to come up with a sliding catch in right field, allowing two runs to score. The Pirates then took a 3-0 lead when Michael McCutchen’s infield single went off Kershaw’s glove, and a sacrifice fly brought in another run.

After laboring through the opening frame, Kershaw settled in to hold the Pirates without a hit and to only two walks while collecting three strikeouts from the second through fifth innings. That allowed the Dodgers to steadily chip away at their deficit.

The comeback effort appeared to be squandered a bit in the second inning when the Dodgers managed only run after loading the bases with nobody out. It was driven in on Andy Pages grounding into a double play.

The Dodgers made more progress on Shohei Ohtani’s solo home run in the second inning, and they also received a two-out RBI single from Hernández. Andy Pages led off the fourth inning with a game-tying home run.

Ohtani’s home run had a 120 mph exit velocity and was his 100th with the Dodgers. Ohtani reached 100 home runs with the Dodgers in just 294 games, making him the fastest to that point in franchise history. It previously had been Gary Sheffield, who hit 100 home runs in 399 games with the Dodgers.

Dodgers bullpen struggles

Edgardo Henriquez walked the first two batters faced upon entering in the sixth inning and was removed after allowing a one-out RBI single that put the Pirates back ahead.

Blake Treinen surrendered a two-run double to Jared Triolo with two outs before he could get through the inning.

That proved somewhat costly as the Dodgers scored three more runs. One of which was on Will Smith’s RBI single in the seventh inning after home plate umpire Nic Lentz incorrectly ruled that Smith did not strike out on a foul trip, much to the dismay of Pirates manager Don Kelly.

Kelly was seen shouting, “That’s on you” toward Lentz after Smith’s base hit.

Pittsburgh scored an eighth run in the bottom of the seventh inning that effectively negated Smith’s RBI, and added another in the eighth when Pages dropped a sliding catch.

The cushion proved beneficial considering Ohtani hit an RBI double with nobody out in the ninth inning.