Sometimes you just overthink it. LHRP Anthony Banda was the opener, and his task was to get Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper out. Banda struck out the RH hitter, Harrison Bader, but gave up the HR to Schwarber and walked Harper. I acknowledge that another reason for Sheehan to come out of the bullpen is because that is what he is likely going to do in the playoffs.
In the 3rd, Sheehan walked Bader, and then struck out both Schwarber and Harper. Go figure.
Sheehan pitched well for 5.2 innings, but a leadoff double by the much heralded Otto Kemp, and Emmet’s night was done. The usually reliable Jack Dreyer gave up a run scoring single and a 2-run HR from another future HOF, Wesley Wilson. A 3-1 Dodgers lead quickly became a 4-3 Phillies lead.
Mookie hit a 2-out solo HR to tie the game off usually reliable Orion Kerkering.
After Bryce Harper hit a solo HR off Alex Vesia in the 8th giving Philadelphia the one run lead, LHRP Matt Strahm, who has been outstanding since July 1, retired the Dodgers in order in the 8th setting up Jhoan Duran for the 9th.
However, before Duran, the Dodgers trotted out Tanner Scott. Scott showed us some of that Scott the Dodgers thought they were getting. He struck out one, and had two soft contact outs on 10 pitches (9 strikes).
Duran has been untouchable for Philadelphia since they acquired him from Minnesota. He easily dispatched Max Muncy with a K. But then Andy Pages came to the plate. On an 0-2 pitch, Duran threw a curve, and Pages did not miss it. 108.2 MPH and 424 feet and the game was tied.
One good outcome was that Duran threw 22 pitches, so there is very little chance he pitches is all three games. The Dodgers are also not going to be afraid of Duran. In his last two relief appearances against LAD, Duran gave up a walkoff HR by Ohtani, and now a tying HR off the bat of Andy Pages.
Blake Treinen came in with a Harrison Bader the placed runner at 2nd. He got the first out, but IBB Bryce Harper. Philadelphia pulled off the double steal, Bader scored on a sac fly off the bat of JT Realmuto. Philly back out in front.
In the bottom of the 10th the Dodgers loaded the bases with one out off David Robertson. But the guy who has been fairly clutch most of the year, Miggy Ro, popped out on the 1st pitch. Max hit a 3U groundball to end the game.
What was disappointing was that the Dodgers had Ranger Suárez on the ropes and let them him off the hook. While neither bullpen was efficient nor effective as a group, the Phillies bullpen was better than the Dodgers. Shocking, I know. The Dodgers now have 12 games to try and piece together a bullpen they can rely on for the playoffs.
One point that should not be overlooked is that the offense has been fairly productive against 3 very good SP in their last three games. They have two more on Tuesday and Wednesday.
One other thing, for the second straight year, Betts has been chosen as the Dodgers’ nominee for the Roberto Clemente Award, baseball’s most prestigious off-the-field prize, in recognition for his wide-ranging charity work. More on that later.
Bullpen won us a WS last year and wil probably be our downfall this year. Can’t get any better than our starting pitching right now. What a waste!
3 HR’s given up by the relief pitchers in this game.
Kudos to Mookie on a team of full of exceptional off the field givers. Easy to root for a team of outstanding young men
Bringing Sheehan out for last batter was dumb
The Phillies look a football team in baseball uniforms. They are currently 6 wins better than the Dodgers. As it stands we will get them in the second round. And they will have home field. I don’t see that changing. For the record the Dodgers have a losing record on the road.
Sheehan and Scott looked good. Nobody else did. This is the time of year, and these are the games this team needs to find a way to win. They are 6-4. The Phillies are 8-2. The next two games are huge.
It feels very odd to me to look at a Dodger box score and see a starter go 1 out, nobody hitting.300 and four players with batting averages below .200.
Another tough loss. Bullpen crapped themselves again, but the offense ultimately failed with a runner at 3rd and one out.
Well, it was a battle. HRs from Max, Mookie and Pages… but still not enough.
Neither team was at full strength, with Will Smith and Trea Turner both out.
If the Dodgers had won, they’d have a much better chance of earning a bye in the first round of the playoffs. Now they are 5 1/2 games back. An early exit would be ignominious.
Getting Smith healthy is important.
Sheehan was impressive again.
Here’s a thought: Let the starters start!
And those starting starters must find a way to go AT LEAST 6. Here’s a suggestion: try throwing strikes.
This IS the point in the season that the team has had circled on the calendar to get, no, not get, to BE in playoff mode. This series against a better team is a tell. Can they beat them? Can they win at home? They better be able to because when they meet them in the playoffs that series will start on the road, where the Dodgers have a losing record.
It’s time. Send a message.
The dodgers better focus on winning the division. If they don’t the chances are much greater they are out in the first round. We are not going to catch the Phillies. If we don’t win the division we will end up in Chicago. If we do win at least we would be at home. This whole season has been slow played by AF and Roberts in my opinion. U can’t just turn it on when u want. Even now we play Edman every other day. Never any urgency. I still believe a big bullpen key could be getting Stewart back if he is healthy. None of our pitchers can throw strikes consistently n then they can’t hold runners so automatically 2 bases n mb 3. We won with the bullpen last year but this year it’s a cringe when that bullpen door opens.
Playofff roster in a three game set against the Mets. Pitchers (Mets appear to hit better from the left side of the plate. Starters, Snell, Yamamoto Glasnow (no particular order. Bullpen, Kershaw, Ohtani, Henriquez, Scott, Sheehan, Wrobleski, Heaney:), Treinen, Casparius. Hitters, Smith, take your pick of Rushing or Rortvedt, Betts, Edman, Freeman, Kike, Muncy Rojas Call Conforto Teo Pages, a speed guy, Dean or Kim. And chose your poison on Yates or Kopech
I’d take Kopech over Yates any day of the week.
What pencil neck analytics wizard came up with the idea to start Banda to basically pitch to Schwarber and Harper? Let’s trick em. How’d that work out?
Schwarber and Harper both have REVERSE SPLITS so the idea was ill-conceived from the git-go. It seems like the Dodgers sometimes become way too hung up on lefty-righty match ups. They have to be the smartest guys in the room.
It’s a flagrant case of over-thinking and over-coaching. Let the friggin players play and stop trying to influence the game by using a computer.
Sheehan was great particularly against the guys the Dodgers tried so hard for him to avoid.
Maybe that will be Banda’s role in the playoff so we needed to practice that stupid ass idea? How about winning this game instead of practicing an “opener”.
That run mattered.
Treinen, like most of our relief pitchers, made no attempt to hold the runners and the double steal proved costly, setting up the sac fly w/ Manfred’s Man.
Good game. Tough loss.
Someone, Orel?, said Dodgers wanted to give Sheehan experience coming in for long relief. We’ll see if that mentality holds up for Kershaw.
Over managing for sure. Even if they know reverse splits they do it anyway. Can’t throw strikes and can’t hold runners. They cost us the series in Atlanta when they brought Urias with a lead and blew it. Games are played with humans not computers.
They brought in Urias the year before and won the World Series
That is true but the situation was different. In Atlanta they were trying to start him and relieve him. In one case he was on short rest. I believe the year he struck out Adames he had been used mostly as a reliever n was brought in over Kenley Jansen because Jansen had struggled. 2 entirely different scenarios. Boston had beaten us in the World Series with Price starting and then relieving between starts. Didn’t work for Urias n LA.
Urias started game four of the 2020 World Series. He went 4.2 innings allowing 2 runs, 4 hits, a walk and striking out 9. Both of the runs scored on homers by Arozarena and Hunter Renfroe. Treinen relieved him, pitched 2/3rds of an inning allowing 2 runs. Baez then came in and allowed 2 runs, both on homers giving Tampa a tie after LA had scored 2 in the top of the 7th to go up 6-5. Kolek and Graterol kept Tampa off of the scoreboard in the 8th, and the Dodgers scored the go ahead run in the 9th. Jansen then came in and was tagged with the loss when Taylor made an error on the hit by Phillips. Urias’s only other appearance in that series was his relief stint in game 6 which came 3 days later, a day he would normally throw a bullpen. A game 7 start would have likely gone to Buehler. In 2021, Urias relieved Treinen with LA ahead, 4-2 and allowed the tying runs for a blown save. Braves scored the winning run in the 9th inning of game 2 off of Graterol. Jansen gave up the game winning hit with 2 outs. Urias started game 4 at LA giving up 5 runs in 5 innings on 8 hits, 3 of which were homers.
True. I guess they thought “we just won with this, so let’s do it again”. I would’ve done the same. And I would’ve been wrong.
Bobby I could give a rip about a scenario where Urias pitched in Atlanta sometime in the past.
This is about THIS Year, with this staff.
The simple fact that pitching Banda with 2 LHB with reverse split is all you need to know, to see this idea was stupid..
And the idea that everybody needed to practice Banda being an opener and Sheehan the “long-man”, is just bullshit.
We’ve had plenty of practice with openers.
Once again, the idea was to win THIS game at this point of the season. It’s not time for experiments and “role-playing”
.
No urgency again, it looked like. Just practice up for a 3 game series and then see the Phillies again. With Snell, Glasnow and Yamamoto, I see no need for an opener. Maybe Ohtani but I rather see him closing or piggybacked with Kershaw, not Banda.
This was just over-managing at its worst time.
Sorry to hear about Robert Redford. He was a favorite for as long as I can remember. RIP
Robert Redford passed away today. Starred in one of my all-time favorite baseball movies, The Natural. RIP.
Very sad to learn of Redford passing. A great actor and a class act.
Geez, this is aggravating…
Shohei has his best start of the season, going 5 innings without allowing a hit or a run. He’s thrown only 68 pitches, 42 for strikes. He’s dominating a very good Phillies team.
So he gets pulled. I don’t know–maybe he felt a twinge. Maybe there’s a good reason. But Roberts and the Dodger brain trust have a pattern of removing starters too early. His thinking seems to be that each reliever should get one inning.
Surely Shohei could have pitched at least one more inning.
Oh, but what if he still had a no-hitter going? Would that make it harder to take him out?
Hell, yes! It would be terrific for Shohei to allowed to push on at least until he allows a hit.
But noooo. Shohei was in full command, with a 4-0 lead. But in comes Wrobleski. He gets one out and then gets knocked around because he isn’t fricking Shohei-in-command.
As I write this, the Phils have taken a 6-4 lead.
Way to flip the script, Doc.
Why stick with an ace who’s on a roll?
Both Shohei and Wrobleski piled up some 5s and 1s.
Shohei: 5 IP, 5 Ks, 1 BB
Wrobleski: 0.1 IP, 5 hits, 5 earned runs, 1 HR.
Hey, it wasn’t Tanner Scott’s fault this time!
Here’s hoping the Dodgers battle back. But this turn of events just sucks.
One time I wish Dave had not stuck to his plan. Shohei should have at least pitched the sixth. I am not as sold on Wrobleski as many have been.
9 runs off of the bullpen! Only Dreyer and Banda untouched. Simply unacceptable. Getting beat on a 3-run homer by a backup catcher hitting under .200!!! Bad mojo.
It’s called bad pitching from bad pitchers, not so much bad mojo.
You call it what you want, and I will use whatever phrase I feel appropriate. Don’t tell me how to think or speak.
Word!