Next month will already be tough.
A rainy Friday night in Queens made it much more difficult.
In the fourth game of a 29-game stretch against the playoff contention team, the Dodgers defeated a marathon contest at Citifield, overcoming three nine blown-out saves in 13 innings.
But their already shorten pitching staff survived more unexpected obstacles in the process. The third limited starting pitcher’s top of the rain was delayed by an hour and 38 minutes, just two innings behind. In a seemingly endless game, the overworked bullpen was forced to combine another 11 innings.
“Obviously, that’s not the way we imagined it,” he said. “But I found a way to endure.”
“The Mets had to do the same thing and they lost,” Kershaw added. “That doesn’t feel very good.”
Navigating this difficult part of the schedule – which began in earnest with this week’s three-game series against the Arizona Diamondbacks – had already raised a test where the Dodgers pitching staff lost three of their five opening day rotation members and many other important weapons in the bullpen.
So, Roberts has recently emphasized the need to push starters and beat as many innings as possible.
However, on Friday, the weather did not cooperate.
With his second start after toe and knee surgery in the offseason, Kershaw looked towards a decent start. Beyond two scoreless innings, he only won a lonely walk that was quickly erased by double plays. With only 26 pitches, he felt “consistency, repetition” in his delivery.
“More people are better for me now,” he said. “I’m just trying to get back to that.”
Instead, the New York skies opened until late in May as the Dodgers won a rally at the third top. For the next 98 minutes, fans were scattered across the shelter and watched the Knicks playoff game on the stadium scoreboard. Back at the visiting clubhouse, Roberts saw the clock ticking and ticking, and ultimately keeping the car show was no longer a viable option.
“I tried to keep it as loose as possible, but it lasted a long time,” Kershaw said. “In hindsight, they should have probably waited for a while to start the game. It’s difficult to cover 10 innings in the bullpen.”
It would have been less if Scott hadn’t been blown away for the fourth time on 14 occasions and not had his second chance in the last four days. This comes with the Dodgers 5-2, following three innings of two-run balls and three innings from three scoreless innings.
Sterling Marte led 9th in singles. Pete Alonso went for one walk. Jeff McNeill took both homes homes with a triple hit high enough to avoid Freddie Freeman jumping on a single base. Tyrone Taylor then completed Scott’s fourth blown save on the RBI single left with 14 opportunities.
“I didn’t even think that way,” Scott said when asked if he was affected by his third pitching in four days. “I just hope I’m in a better place and put everyone out.”
For some reason, the Dodgers (32-19) still won.
Alex Vescia won the extras’ game by finishing two runners in ninth place as the Mets (30-21) refused a regulated walk-off. Both teams wereted opportunities from there, failing to acquire autorunners on the 10th (when the Dodgers were loaded onto the base without out), the 11th (when Anthony Vanda and Lewis Garcia combine to escape the baseloaded threat), and the 12th (when the Dodgers spin the inning-end double plays with five influ plays).
“It’s just a fierce game,” said the third baseman, who decided that Tripp Gibson, the 3 baseman, had deliberately stepped into Marte’s vision with a potential sacrifice fly, and deliberately stepped into Marte’s gaze after running to the Mets base runner with an outfield assist from Hernández.
“It’s really good that everyone doesn’t give up and keeps fighting,” Muncie added.
Certainly, on the 13th, the Dodgers finally broke, hitting a “lead-off RBI double before scoring on a sacrifice fly.”
Garcia closed it down and completed a scoreless inning of just a few minutes, 2°, shy at 1am local time.
And while the outcome certainly comes at the future costs of the pitching staff running in smoke, Roberts was comforted by the way the other six bailers fought, reassuring that the complications of the larger paintings coming out from Friday were not, at least, wasted on what had not been crushed late-night losses.
“There certainly were a few uses as long as we protect the downsides on the next handful,” Roberts said of his overworked bullpen.
“But,” he added. “There have been a lot of good things from our pen today. Certainly from Lewis and Banda there, and obviously the copy remains good. So there are a lot of good things.”
