PITTSBURGH — On one side of the Allegheny River this week, they are holding an arts festival.
On the north shore at PNC Park, there was no work of art Thursday night.
The Dodgers and Pittsburgh Pirates made four errors – on the scorecard – and enough unmade plays to make it necessary for a responsible parent to cover the eyes of any Little Leaguers on hand. Hung out to dry by the defenses, the pitching was less than picturesque as well.
But the Dodgers came away with an 11-7 victory, taking the final game of the three-game series and averting a sweep at the hands of the Pirates.
The atmosphere in the post-game clubhouse was more reflective of the play than the score and a clearly displeased Dodgers manager Dave Roberts called it “by far” the team’s worst defensive performance this season.
“Yeah, it was the worst defensive game of the year,” Roberts said. “You have a starter go short last night (James Paxton). You have a starter go three innings. It seems like because of the lack of defense, pitchers are throwing way more pitches than they should have. They’ve got to take responsibility too. But the defense goes hand in hand with the pitching.
“You’re supposed to get 27 outs. We gifted them at least a half dozen. We gave away bases, outs. It wasn’t good. We’ll take the win. But it was certainly at a cost, going into a big series.”
Between them, Paxton and Walker Buehler recorded a total of 14 outs Wednesday and Thursday, leaving 12⅓ innings for the bullpen to absorb. Roberts burned through his high-leverage relievers Thursday despite a big lead most of the evening and closer Evan Phillips wound up throwing 31 pitches in the eighth inning after the Dodgers’ failure to make plays behind him extended the inning.
“That’s definitely the most important part, winning, no matter how it looks. A win is a win,” said Mookie Betts, who made two throwing errors (his eighth and ninth errors of the season at shortstop). “Especially myself, I mean, I gotta clean up a lot of things. Back to the drawing board. Back to working. But, you know, a win is a win.”
The Dodgers do escape to New York with their offense looking lively.
Freed from the oppressive heat slung by hard-throwing rookies Jared Jones and Paul Skenes in the first two games, the Dodgers broke out for 14 hits including three home runs and four doubles Thursday. They got three-run home runs from Freddie Freeman during a four-run first inning and Betts during a six-run fifth.
That home run by Betts had to be the most welcome sight of all Thursday.
After an MVP-caliber start to the season, Betts had slipped into a deep slump with just one home run in 66 at-bats before his homer against the Pirates and only one hit of any kind in 24 at-bats before Thursday’s game.
He broke that stretch with a leadoff single in the first inning and had his first multi-hit game since the Dodgers’ doubleheader at Citi Field on May 28.
“I do feel that, even if it’s just one game,” Betts said when asked if his swing felt better Thursday. “Anything can happen in one game, so we got to put some games together. So we’ll know in a couple days.”
Shohei Ohtani followed Betts’ first-inning single with a sinking line drive to right field, where Edward Olivares made a sliding attempt that was originally ruled a catch – but slowly enough that Betts was hung up, confused, between first and second base. Even the umpires were having a bad night.
After a replay review, it was evident Olivares hadn’t made the catch and Betts was awarded second on a single by Ohtani. On the next pitch from Pirates starter Bailey Falter, Freeman drove his three-run homer into the right field seats.
The Dodgers added another run in the inning and sent their starter, Buehler, to the mound with a 4-0 lead. The lead and Buehler were gone by the fourth inning.
Errors by Betts and Kiké Hernandez led to one run in the second inning and more sloppy defense didn’t help Buehler during a three-run third inning.
“When you score 11 or 12 runs, it’s a little nit-picky to worry about it too much,” Buehler said of the poor play behind him, leading to him throwing 41 pitches in the inning. “Obviously, we think we’re a really, really talented offensive team, and a really talented defensive team as well. So it is what it is. This game is hard. And when I make 30 pitches an inning, it’s hard for everybody to be on their toes all the time. So, at the end of the day, being a starting pitcher, a lot of that kind of boils down to me.”
The big blow was indeed Buehler’s fault. Since returning from his second Tommy John surgery, Buehler has been frustrated by an infrequent ability to finish off hitters even when he has the count in his favor.
He got to 1-and-2 on Nick Gonzales with two outs and two on but Gonzales fouled off four pitches. The eighth pitch of the at-bat was a fastball up. Gonzales hammered it into the seats down the left field line for a game-tying three-run home run.
“I probably made six or seven pitches that I really like in that at-bat,” Buehler said. “And then, even the location on that pitch, 95 percent of the time, I’m very happy with where that ball was thrown and the action and velocity and whatever. And he just put a good swing on it. It sucks that it happened.”
It took four more batters for Buehler to get out of the inning thanks to a muffed catch by Miguel Vargas in left field that was scored a double.
Buehler’s night was done after that, his ERA now 4.82 after six post-surgery starts.
“It’s high,” Buehler said, asked to assess his frustration level at this point of his comeback. “At the end of the day, I want to be good, I want to help our team. And five out of six (starts), I’ve kind of hurt our team. So I’m gonna give myself a couple more to get myself on track and then kind of see where we’re really at.
“But it’s hard when, physically, I know the tools are there and I know there’s ways that I can go about doing this better. Yeah, it just sucks. It sucks to be the worst guy on a staff. It sucks to keep putting your team in a hole, especially when they go up 4-0 in the first inning for you. So, yeah, it’s just tough.”
But the Dodgers’ offense was not done. Teoscar Hernandez got the lead back with a home run leading off the fifth inning and the Dodgers scored five more times in the inning, capped by Betts’ homer.
Two more plays that should have been made – by Vargas in left and Betts up the middle – led to a three-run home run by Oneil Cruz in the eighth, a 462-foot bomb off Phillips that bounced into the river, before the ugliness ended.