The Dodgers had won five straight, and were going for the sweep with Julio Urias on the mound, and Dusty Baker bobbleheads in everyone’s hands. Here’s how the game played out.
1st inning
Nats
After a questionable walk to Jason Werth, Julio Urias struck out two and got one fly out.
Dodgers
Chase Utley and Corey Seger singled. Utley came home on a wild pitch for the Dodgers’ first, and Utley’s one thousandth career run. 1-0
3rd inning Dodgers 1-0
Nats
They rallied for two runs and the lead. 2-1
Dodgers
Corey Seager went down low and hit his 16th homer of the year to tie the game. 2-2
5th inning Tie game 2-2
Nats
Urias began the inning at 75 pitches. He got one out from an acrobatic, shoestring juggling catch of a foul ball by Adrian Gonzalez.
With two outs and a full count, Jayson Werth hit a double off the center field wall. The Dodgers nearly blew it when Yasmani Grandal and Justin Turner had a miscommunication on a pop fly in front of the Dodgers dugout. The ball landed harmlessly and Bryce Harper got a second chance. Urias popped him up again to end the threat.
6th inning Tie score 2-2
Urias out. Casey Fien in.
Fien ended up pitching two scoreless innings (6th and 7th).
7th inning 2-2
Dodgers
Yasmani Grandal led off the inning with a single – his second hit of the night.
Yasiel Puig, coming up for the third time in the game with at least one man on, this time took a breaking ball into left field for a single.
Roberts PH for Utley (WTH?????!!!!!!), Kiké struck out, and the inning was effectively over.
8th inning Tie 2-2
Pedro Baez in.
Ramos took Baez deep. Solo homer to break the tie. 3-2
9th inning Nats 3-2
Dodgers
Joc Pederson: K
Howie Kendrick: single
Yasiel Puig: WOW WOW WOW!!
Puig singled up the middle into center field.
Micheal Taylor, who already was having a bad night with a Platinum Sombrero, let the ball pass under his glove and back to the wall.
Kendrick came around to score the tying run from first and amazingly, right behind him, came the Wild Horse. Puig brought the winning run home on a bellyflop slide as the crowd went wild!
Dodgers win! 4-3
Julio Urias kept his strike outs tally high, but it still took too many pitches to get there. He pitched five innings and used 94 pitches to get there. It was his highest pitch count of the season.
Although they’ve won, the Dodgers offense has begun reverting into its low scoring mode over the past two games.
With the exception of Seager’s home run in the fifth, the offense was quiet.
They had a good scoring opportunity in the seventh when Grandal and Puig led off the inning with back to back singles. Manager Dave Roberts made a bonehead percentages move and pinch hit Enrique Hernandez for Chase Utley. Kiké struck out horribly, and the air was sucked out of the rally.
Yet, the Dodgers’ late inning heroics continued, and Yasiel Puig brought home the winning run – all the way around from home plate!
Six in a row – the longest winning streak of the season – and a sweep of the mighty Nationals. Wow!
Julio Urias went 5 innings with 6 hits, 2 runs, 1 walk, 6 Ks. ERA 4.33
Home run: Corey Seager
Team with RISP: 0 for 6 But the boys won!
And finally tonight, a moment of Vin Scully zen…
Oscar Martinez
I was born in the shadow of Dodger Stadium and immediately drenched in Dodger Blue. Chavez Ravine is my baseball cathedral, Vin Scully was the golden voice of summer all my life, and Tommy Lasorda remains the greatest Dodgers manager ever. My favorite things are coffee, beer, and the Dodgers beating the Giants. I also blog about my baseball card hobby at All Trade Bait, All the Time.
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I grew up in Anaheim, a little immigrant boy, barely spoke English, in a little fast food restaurant next to a closed down mini golf-course, and listened to Vin Scully every day every summer. I learned how to speak English on account of him and Chick Hearns.
Chick Hearn and Vinny…….2 LA icons, hard to believe that after this year we will hear neither again……The jello is in the refrigerator….
Two great men, they gave me thousands of hours of pleasure. We were truly blessed…
Welcome to America mate! Land of fast food, abandoned businesses and baseball.
Vinny, Chick, Bob Miller…yeah we’ve been blessed. The Angels had a wonderful announcer during the years Rod Carew and Bobby Grich…I believe his name was Bob Starr. Great voice.
Chick would be calling Puig in the popcorn machine a lot.
“Not a Phi Betta Kappa player” …. “The butter in his head is getting hard” ……
Ok that last one was not really a Chicism, it was more Badger Hearn.
Do not forget Dick Enberg…..He also had a very distinctive voice…
Well……after Baez did his usual I’ll allow a homer bit, I went to bed……dumb move…….missed the Wild Horse show…..but I have MLB streaming so I can watch it with my morning coffee…….
Let’s be honest. That was a gift.
I’ll take it.
We could use some good luck. And we are going to need more of it this year.
Luck is the residue of design!
I’ve done the math:
at 5 innings per start (more than his average) Urias can start 12 more times this year and be below 130 innings for the year. All he needs to do is throw more strikes and he could pitch through September. Just put an extra arm in the bullpen, a long man would be nice, and no reason to shut him down early.
Taylor, 5 K’s and a bone headed game losing error. Wow. Doesn’t get worse than that.
PS – Puig is fast.
Dodger Digest ( http://dodgersdigest.com/2016/06/22/dodgers-adrian-gonzalez-power-outage-concerning-ground-ball-rate/ ) looks at Agon’s precipitus decline.
Wondering
I already read that article.
In that article they didn’t say that Agone was in a big decline.
They said that Agone’s back, is probably hurting him.
Because they said that players don’t have such big declines, like Agone looks like he is having, with his power.
They also said that Agone keeps in great shape, so that would point to his back, hurting him too.
Agone just needs to get more days off, like Turner.
But Roberts shouldn’t give them both the same day off.
Fine I’ll nitpick. Puig don’t look at the ball! That is why you have a 3B coach. Look at him. He will tell you what to do.
Yeah I’m good at nitpicking. At least we won 🙂
The game’s in the refrigerator, the door’s closed, the light’s out, the eggs are cooling, the butter’s getting hard and the jello’s jiggling…. God bless you Chicky…
In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened… Vin, I’ll miss you…
Yeah, I read that Wondering. Interesting read, launch angles etc., but ISO weary of reading numbers like that when I can watch him and tell you what’s wrong. I think his back is bothering him and it’s effecting his swing. He doesn’t appear to be attacking, and launching, fastballs in his wheelhouse. The shift might take a few hits away from him, but it’s my opinion he is skilled enough with a bat to beat it 30% of the time if he was 100% healthy. He believes if he isn’t in there the offense struggles, but it’s my opinion he should get some therapy on his back until after the All Star break and we go with another platoon at that position.
In the course of a season every team has wins and losses based solely on good or bad luck. Maybe we’re due for a stretch of good fortune. Pittsburgh appears to be reeling. Let’s hope that continues when we show up.
A DL stint would allow us to get SVS some consistent playing time, let us know if we want to keep him or serve as a showcase if we decide to trade him. Win-Win.
Works for me.
Agone
Is not going on the DL.
But Roberts needs to make him take a day off, every six or seven games, like he does with Turner.
Scott can’t play first base as well as Agone.
And Agone would probably get more hits then Scott, especially with right hand pitching.
without Agone on first, Cory and the whole infield, would have many more throwing errors, then they have.
I do think that Roberts needs to make Agone take more days off.
I do think that article pointed to what is really going on, with Agone.
But it didn’t say Agone was in a typical decline, so that headline, is a little mis leading.
The article, really said that Agone is not hitting to opposite way, to beat the shift, because he has hit well all around the field this year.
The article did say that Agone was probably hitting to the oppo field, because it is easier on his back.
And if you noticed, Agone looked like he was trying to hit a HR to the oppo field last night.
He tried to hit a HR just in the leftfield foul pole, so it probably hurts his back less, to not pull the ball.
A-Gone is a pro. If he plays 5 or 6 days a week, he gives it his all, and sorry, SVS does not make that catch off Utley’s assist down the RF line. His BA is lower and so is his HR total, but he is still as Vinny says, the butter and egg man. Launch angle on his hits has a lot to do with the power drop. He is hitting a lower percentage of fly balls than in years past. My concern has been his drop off in average the last 2 years. He is a career . 289 hitter, but the last 2 seasons and this year he is below .280. His RBI pace right now would give him about 75 for the season, way below his average. So there is a drop in production no doubt. But there is also no quick fix such as trading him, and using rotating first basemen until Bellinger is ready in maybe 2 years. Ethier could do the job probably, but there is no way he is back before August, and even then he will not be fully ready. I think they will let the season play out with AG getting more time off, and SVS, Utley and Kendrick at the bag when he is off. Of more concern is the state of the starting pitching which will take another hit when Urias meets his inning limit.
It happens to Kemp, he’s finished, throw him away… Happens to Agon, he’s just tired, no problem. No shortage of Agon chauvinists.
Wondering
I can’t speak for Michael, but I think like me, Michael wasn’t happy when Kemp was traded.
I knew the offense, was going to take a big hit, when both Hanley and Kemp, were no longer on the team.
Kemp’s bat, is really missed on this team.
And Agone misses Kemp’s bat, in the line up, more then any other player on the Dodgers.
Because Kemp always batted behind Agone, and provided great protection for Agone, in the line up.
Our front office, probably didn’t like Kemp’s defensive metrics, in the outfield.
And Kemp takes a bigger hit on defensive
metrics, then any other outfielder, in baseball.
But I personally don’t think these defensive metrics, can truly, measure a player’s defense, especially in the outfield.
I don’t think that Kemp is that bad, in rightfield.
And I believe Kemp’s bat, more then makes up, for any defensive short comings,
Kemp might have.
There are a lot more routine plays in the outfield, in most of games, that an outfielder will play.
So it is really hard to gauge just how much a player’s defense, makes a difference, from day to day.
And believe me, I was so mad when they traded Matt Kemp.
We had went through all the injuries with Kemp.
But finally Kemp was healthy, and because of that, Kemp had the best offensive numbers, in all of baseball, in the second half of the season.
And that was the year, before Kemp was traded, and I was looking forward, to seeing Kemp hit for an entire year. So I too, miss Kemp’s big bat!
Age and injuries go together. Unfortunately so does recovery. Takes longer.
And as Rick Monday said every player is the first to admit he lost it but always the last to admit he is losing it.
Artie boy,
When anyone has any kind of back or neck injury, it can make you feel older, then you are.
And sometimes you might just need to rest your back or neck, and you will feel fine.
If Agone’s back problem was that bad, he would have had a surgery by now.
This has been an on going problem, for Agone, most of his career.
I had a back surgery twenty years ago, and when you have those nerve problems, sometimes they come and go.
And most of the time, you don’t even know how they came on.
But the irritation can stop just as fast, as they come on.
It’s always difficult to say whether a player is in decline or just having a bad year, as Ethier did in 2014. The back problem is probably the culprit, but I don’t know if it will respond to extra rest or will get worse with age. If the medical staff knows, they’re not talking for obvious reasons. Extra rest is certainly worth trying; if they can give starters extra days off while trying to keep pace with the Giants, why not AGone?
Snider
I think Roberts is going to have to make Agone take some days off, from time to time, because he is use to playing all the time.
MJ, injury is not really in his back. I read it more centered in the neck region, which is a whole different ball of wax. Hard to get loose when your neck is stiff. As far as Kemp being traded, you are dead on, and the reason is this. Ramirez, Gonzo, Kemp, no way to pitch around that. I knew Ramirez was a goner because of the injury’s, but trading Kemp when he was just showing that he was healthy was stupid. How important would those 23 homers, and 100 ribbies have been last year? What did we get in return? A good 12 weeks out of Grandal, and then nothing. He disappeared the second half. Injury? Yes, but trying to play through it was dumb. If he had the surgery during last season, he might have been ready to go from day one in spring this year, but no, so we are saddled with a catcher hitting below the Mendoza line. Kemp has 15 homers and 51 RBI’s and is hitting 70 points higher than Grandal. He has made 2 errors and has 6 OF assists…..not bad for a lousy fielder. And Wondering, I am not an A-Gone chauvinist as you say. But A-Gone is 34, diminished skills are expected. He still produces. Kemp was 30 when he was traded……and he is producing better than the 27 year old catcher who’s only skill is pitch framing…….
Wow, a month ago Kemp was barely above the Mendoza line. Of course, May has always been his worst month. I don’t have enough chances to watch him to comment on his defense, but if you believe in WAR it seems his dWAR has almost canceled his oWAR the last few years. I don’t even know how they calculate it, but I’m sure the guys in the front office do.
I understood the need to move a corner outfielder and that Kemp was the most valuable, but it seems we should have gotten more in return when you consider we threw in about $30 million. They were betting that Puig would be the player we saw in his first year and that Grandal could bring some offensive value to the catcher position. Neither has paid off.
Snider
Mattingly was also a big part of the trade.
When the new front office came here, they didn’t know Kemp’s story.
Mattingly tingly didn’t like getting challenged by Kemp, about playing Leftfield.
And Mattingly told the front office, that Puig would provide the right hand power.
And of course Mattingly was wrong.
And he wasn’t talking to Puig, at the end of the season.
Kemp has never talked to Mattingly since either.
That BS about getting players, that were functional, to go farther into the post season, was the word the front office used, to explain the Kemp trade.
But that was just a good excuse.
I’m suprised that no one here, has talked about Roberts moves, in last night’s game.
Or have mentioned the HR that Baez gave up in last night’s game.
Baez had just gave up a HR, in the first game, of the Brewer’s series.
And the day before the Brewer’s series, Baez almost gave up a HR to Goldy, right down the rightfield line, and that ball, was originally called a HR.
Baez had given up 7 HRs this season, more then he gave up, in all of the 2015 season.
And now Baez has given up more HRs, then both Kershaw and Maeda this year.
He needs to be moved down to AAA, because he just isn’t getting it.
He also has given up more HRs, then Hatcher at this time.
And I can’t believe that Roberts took Chase out of that game, and had Kike bat for Chase. Chase had just gotten a hit against this same leftie pitcher, in the game before, that hit in a run.
Kike has been up four times in the last three weeks, in this same situation, that he hit in last night.
And he has done the same thing, in all four of these at bats.
He struck out on three pitches.
All Kike needed to do, was hit a flyball, in to the outfield, or just hit a slow grounder, to the right side.
But Kike couldn’t even put the ball in play.
The Dodgers were really lucky they won that game, after this happened.
I like Roberts, but that was terrible management.
Even Scott or Howie, would be much better choices, then Kike.
Kike needs some time in AAA. He is obviously not the same player he was last year. Bring up Segedin, who can play 1st and 3rd and spell A-Gone and Turner, and he has more pop than Kike. We have more than enough guys to cover the middle, and not so much the corners. Roberts made a dumb move, and it could have been the ball game, but Kendrick and Puig and Taylor bailed him out in the 9th. MJ, they are not going to send Baez down simply because the guy hits 99 on the gun. His fastball flattens out and it is very hittable…..I was surprised they let Hatcher pitch to a LH hitter like Harper……
1. Kike is really the only backup shortstop unless you count JT.
2. Maybe they could call Frias up to be the long man in the pen.
3. I think it tells you Roberts doesn’t have much faith in JP Howell.
He is, but he it totally lost at the plate. They need to do something. And Seager is playing well enough to not need a backup right now, if they do, recall Charlie Culberson, who is a much better SS than Kike..
It was at least 40 years ago I figured out almost all managers are stupid. It seems to be one of the job requirements. Perhaps GMs select that type for one reason or another… As a general rule, people who think well for themselves don’t take orders very well…
I doubt anyone would call Alston, Stengel, Ralph Houk, or Whitey Herzog stupid…..but what the new managers are is front office lackeys. DM was a perfect example last year. He played the players that the saber metrics geeks told him to play….and it cost the team more than a few times, and the FO did him no favors at the trade deadline…….they needed a solid #3, they got Wood….