PHOENIX — The Los Angeles Dodgers, baseball’s stumbling juggernaut, won a baseball game Saturday, snapping what was tied for their longest losing streak since 2017 even on a night their $69 million closer blew a save for the second game in a row.
A 2-1 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks in 10 innings stopped the Dodgers’ losing skid at seven games, though it did little to quiet the growing noise around closer Edwin Díaz.
“Man,” a relieved Dave Roberts said, “that was a tough one. We’ll take it.”
The Dodgers blew a 1-0 lead when Díaz surrendered back-to-back triples to open the ninth inning, but they squeezed across a run on Shohei Ohtani’s 10th-inning infield single. Jack Dreyer got the final three outs and started the game-ending double play on Ryan Waldschmidt’s comebacker to help the Dodgers escape — and the mild-mannered reliever even let out a euphoric yell.
“I think that was the most emotion I’ve ever showed,” Dreyer said.
They did not win pretty, but they won. An eighth consecutive loss would have been the team’s worst stretch since dropping 11 in a row in September 2017. A win kept the Dodgers from plunging toward history they didn’t want to make. It did not, however, quell growing concerns for the reigning back-to-back World Series champions, who led the division by 14 games a month ago and woke up Saturday with their lead at 7 1/2 games.
Kyle Tucker, being greeted by Teoscar Hernández, has two home runs in his last four games but is on pace for a career-worst OPS as an everyday player. (Mike Christy / Getty Images)
The problems are compounding. Their bullpen is starting to wobble even beyond Díaz, who has allowed runs in four of his five outings since he returned from April elbow surgery and has a 10.80 ERA on the season. The Dodgers had to escape an eighth-inning, bases-loaded jam for the second consecutive night just to hand their closer a lead. Díaz was on the verge of getting walked off for a second consecutive night; had Gabriel Moreno’s hard-hit liner gone anywhere but directly at Max Muncy at third base, the game likely would have been over in the ninth inning.
Their rotation has little margin. Roberts was willing to push the envelope with Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Saturday as a result. Yamamoto, who recently dropped weight and strength as a result of an illness, extended his pitch count to 107 to record 17 scoreless outs.
“I think everybody was feeling the same way,” Yamamoto said through interpreter Yoshihiro Sonoda. “We really wanted to win. … I wanted to get the team off on the right foot.”
The Dodgers’ offense forced Yamamoto to be precise. It’s a growing issue, with the lineup springing leaks; they entered Saturday ranked 17th in baseball over the last month by wRC+ (94).
“I think offensively we’ve just got to get going,” Roberts said. “I think it’s just hard to win games when your margin for winning is a razor’s edge. It’s not like guys aren’t trying, but it’s a tough way to pitch and have to be perfect.”
The slumping offense has slowed to a crawl in the desert. Arizona starters Merrill Kelly and Brandon Pfaadt combined to allow one run on four hits over 12 2/3 innings the last two nights. It took a solo home run in the eighth inning from Kyle Tucker, another free-agent disappointment, just to get the Dodgers a run, much less a lead for Díaz to blow.
Tucker got an elevated changeup from Jonathan Loáisiga and crushed it. One swing cannot fix Tucker’s lost season (.725 OPS), especially when he’s playing in the shadow of a four-year, $240 million deal, but the Dodgers have needed more moments like this from him.
They also need more production from the rest of the lineup. Roberts could not lay the blame for the group’s struggles on one collective issue. They have not hit well enough with runners in scoring position. They have been beaten by fastballs as the rest of the league is throwing more and more of them: The Dodgers have seen the highest rate of fastballs of any team in baseball since the start of July (58.9 percent) and have not taken advantage. Their stars, like Tucker, are not performing like stars.
“We’re confident in our abilities as hitters, and there’s a lot of great ones in this lineup and on this team,” Tucker said. “So it’s not always gonna go our way. I mean, you can do all you can; it doesn’t mean you’re going to get a hit. But you just got to keep moving forward.”
It took luck for the Dodgers to score and finally win in the 10th. Two quick outs brought up light-hitting catcher Hunter Feduccia, who watched as Arizona reliever Gerardo Carrillo missed badly on a pair of two-strike splitters. The second skittered past James McCann to the backstop, allowing the go-ahead run to advance on a wild pitch. After Feduccia walked, Ohtani hit a dribbler that left his bat at 72.7 mph. Tim Tawa could not hold on to his diving stop at first base, and the infield single was enough.
Dreyer still had to make sure the lead held, and he had runners on the corners with one out after McCann beat out an infield single. Waldschmidt, Friday’s walk-off hero, then bounced a curveball back to Dreyer, who fired a clean throw to Tommy Edman at second, who threw to first to give the Dodgers at least temporary relief.
There are problems even for the team accused of ruining the sport. Still, the Dodgers held on. Bad Bunny’s music blasted in the clubhouse once again.
“I think the team just understands that we can turn the corner and close the book on that part now,” Dreyer said.
