Yasiel Puig’s home run gave the Dodgers a 4-0 lead after six innings and Rich Hill was throwing a one-hit shutout. But the Dodgers’ bullpen gave up nine runs in the final three innings.
LOS ANGELES — It has always been the bald tire that threatened to blow. Yet, the Dodgers drove on.
Saturday night was the blowout.
Staked to a 4-0 lead after Yasiel Puig’s three-run home run in the sixth inning, the Dodgers’ bullpen let it all get away. Shut out by Rich Hill for six innings and scoreless in their last 11 stretching back into the Game 3 marathon, the Boston Red Sox scored nine runs in the final three innings Saturday night, taking a 9-6 victory in Game 4.
The Dodgers needed 18 innings Friday night (and Saturday morning) to step away from the edge and avoid being pushed to the brink of elimination in the World Series. Just about 20 hours later, though, they found themselves there anyway, down three games to one to the Red Sox.
“It is a tough loss,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “Any loss in a World Series is difficult, obviously. But now we’re in a situation where we’re do or die. To their credit, they fought back and won a baseball game. So now… we’ve just got to bow our necks and try to win a baseball game and it’s one day at a time.”
The Dodgers will dip into Clayton Kershaw’s mixed bag of October tricks and treats for Game 5 on Sunday, needing a win to extend the Series for another cross-country trip.
“Those guys did a great job of hitting mistakes,” said Kenley Jansen who made a big one to Steve Pearce in the eighth inning. “That’s a really good team. I’m not going to question myself.”
That’s okay. Roberts is the one who will be under interrogation.
The Dodgers had a 4-0 lead after Puig’s 439-foot rifle shot into the left-field pavilion – an actual home run off a left-hander by the southpaw-averse Puig – and Hill spinning a one-hit shutout. But things went south when Roberts came down off D. Mountain.
“Before the top of the 7th… I had a conversation with Rich, and we talked about it,” Roberts said. “He said, ‘Keep an eye on me. I’m going to give it everything I have. Let’s go hitter to hitter and just keep an eye on me.’ So right there, I know Rich did everything he could, competed, left everything out there.”
Roberts had a pinch-hitter on deck to bat for Hill when the Dodgers’ four-run sixth inning ended and sent Hill back out for the seventh. After a walk and a strikeout, Hill was at 91 pitches and Roberts had seen enough.
That was probably the last good decision he made.
Roberts said both Pedro Baez and Julio Urias were unavailable after the 18-inning marathon in Game 3. Baez threw 26 pitches in two inning Friday night, had pitched in each of the first three World Series games and four in the NLCS — to great results. He has allowed one run in 10 1/3 postseason innings this year.
Urias, meanwhile, threw just 11 pitches in Game 3 but has pitched in each of the first three Series games including the first back-to-back games of his professional life.
So Roberts went to Scott Alexander to face the left-handed Brock Holt. He walked him. Roberts next went to Ryan Madson – despite his failures in Games 1 and 2 in Boston.
Madson got Jackie Bradley Jr. to pop out then served up a meaty fastball that Mitch Moreland walloped deep into the right-field pavilion for a three-run home run.
Madson has appeared in each of the four games in this Series and inherited seven baserunners. All of them have scored.
“We were scuffling,” Holt said of a Red Sox offense that had scored two runs in 24 innings before Moreland’s homer. “It kind of took a big hit from one of our guys to get everyone going and obviously that was Mitch Moreland tonight.”
The slide continued when Roberts decided to go with Jansen in the eighth inning for the second consecutive night. It was a bad idea Friday night. And it was a bad idea Saturday.
In Game 3, Jansen gave up a game-tying solo home run to Bradley that sent the game deep into the night. This time, it was Steve Pearce who tied the game with a shot just over the wall in left-center field.
“You know what? They’re a good team,” a subdued Jansen said after the game, surrounded by reporters. “It was just one pitch. It’s one bad pitch yesterday, one bad pitch today.
“Can’t worry about it anymore. It already happened.”
A year ago, Roberts was hailed as a new-age manager for his liberal use of his closer, bringing him into games in the eighth inning five times during the Dodgers’ postseason run. The Jansen of 2017 has only been a memory in 2018. Roberts has tried to use him the same way and it has cost him.”I definitely don’t think it’s physical,” Roberts said of Jansen’s back-to-back blown saves. “I know that coming into last night he had five days off. And he was as fresh as any of our relievers.
“Mentally — there aren’t too many more mentally tough than Kenley. I think it’s just one of those things where you look at the three innings he’s thrown, he made a lot of quality pitches, and the two mistakes he made, the cutters didn’t cut and he gave up two homers. I don’t think it’s a mental or physical thing.”
Things only got worse after Jansen left the game.
The Red Sox completed their comeback against Dylan Floro and piled on against Alex Wood and Kenta Maeda, scoring five runs in the ninth. Holt doubled and Rafel Devers drove him in with an RBI single to give the Red Sox their first lead of the game.
The Red Sox continued their two-out magic and Mookie Betts was intentionally walked and Andrew Benintendi beat out an infield single to load the bases. Maeda gave up a three-run double to Pearce (capping his four-RBI night) and an RBI single to Bogaerts.
Forty-four of the Red Sox’s 79 runs in the postseason have scored after there were two outs in an inning. These proved decisive when Kike’ Hernandez hit a too-little, too-late, two-run home run in the bottom of the ninth.
“I just look at it as things just didn’t work out the way we wanted,” Hill said. “That’s the way we have to look at it and get ready for tomorrow.
“Go out there and give it all we have to take it back to Boston.
