Saturday night’s game did not start or end well for the Dodgers, who saw left-hander Clayton Kershaw get roughed up for four runs and four hits in the first inning and relievers Michael Kopech, Evan Phillips and Joe Kelly give up four runs over the final three innings of a 9-8, 10-inning loss to the Tampa Bay Rays in Chavez Ravine.
The Rays tied the score 7-7 in the top of the ninth on Junior Caminero’s leadoff home run to center field off Phillips, who had recovered from a rocky July to allow no earned runs in 8 ⅓ innings of his first 10 August games. Phillips struck out the next three batters to keep the Dodgers even.
Jose Caballero then hit a two-run home run to left center off Kelly to give the Rays a 9-7 lead in the top of the 10th. The Dodgers scored in the bottom of the 10th on Mookie Betts’ sacrifice fly to center, but Rays left-hander Garrett Cleavinger got Freddie Freeman to ground out to second to end the game.
The loss snapped a five-game winning streak for the Dodgers and reduced their National League West lead over Arizona to three games.
The Dodgers were trailing 5-3 when Max Muncy led off the fifth with a bloop double that fell between left fielder Dylan Carlson and Caballero, the shortstop. Muncy took third on Tommy Edman’s groundout to second and scored on Miguel Rojas’ RBI single to left.
Shohei Ohtani then reached for a 92-mph split-fingered fastball on the outer half from Rays right-hander Taj Bradley and poked a 338-foot homer into the first row of seats near the right-field foul pole — the shortest homer of his seven-year career — for a 6-5 Dodgers lead.
Dodgers reliever Ryan Brasier retired the side in order in the sixth, and Blake Treinen survived a scoreless seventh with the help of Rojas, the shortstop who made a diving stop of a Caminero grounder to the hole and threw to second to nail Brandon Lowe, who had doubled to open the inning, for the first out.
Rojas lined a solo homer to left for a 7-5 lead in the bottom of the seventh, but the Rays pulled to within 7-6 in the top of the eighth with a run off Kopech, snapping the right-hander’s 10 ⅓-inning scoreless streak since his July 29 trade from the White Sox.
Tampa Bay loaded the bases with no outs on Josh Lowe’s single, Caballero’s double and Alex Jackson’s walk. Yandy Diaz hit a sacrifice fly to deep left to score Josh Lowe, but Jackson was thrown out trying to advance to second by Dodgers left fielder Teoscar Hernández. Brandon Lowe popped out to shortstop to end the inning.
Kershaw dug a 4-0 hole in a 32-pitch first inning that featured Brandon Lowe’s double, Caminero’s RBI single, Christopher Morel’s double — Caminero scoring on Hernández’s error in left field–Carlson’s walk and Jonny DeLuca’s two-run single.
Kershaw recovered to blank the Rays on three hits over the second, third and fourth innings, and the Dodgers trimmed the deficit to 4-3 in the fourth when Ohtani reached on catcher’s interference, Betts hit an RBI double to left and Teoscar Hernández drove a two-run homer to center, his 27th of the season and first since Aug. 10.
Tampa Bay scored once more off Kershaw in the fifth, Caminero leading off with a single, Carlson hitting a ground-rule double and Josh Lowe hitting a sacrifice fly to right to push the lead to 5-3.
The Dodgers were still basking in the afterglow of Friday night’s dramatic 7-3 victory over the Rays, when Ohtani hit a walk-off grand slam in the ninth inning to become only the sixth player in major league history to hit 40 homers and steal 40 bases in a season.
“It’s a moment that’s going to be embedded in the story books forever, and it helped us win a big ballgame,” manager Dave Roberts said on Saturday. “And I’m sure there’s going to be a lot more special moments coming.”
The Dodgers hope Ohtani, who suffered through six losing seasons with the Angels, delivers some memorable moments in his first postseason in October, but Roberts thinks he could make even more history in September by becoming the first player to hit 50 homers and steal 50 bases in a season.
“There’s a lot of baseball left, and if anyone can do it, Shohei can,” Roberts said. “But I think the hard part is understanding that it’s attainable, but not trying to make that the sole goal. I think he’s very aware of just taking good at-bats and trying to help us win, and if [a 50-50 season] that happens, great.”
