The ring was flashy.
The victory was anything but.
Before first pitch Monday night, former Dodgers first base coach and first-year Miami Marlins manager Clayton McCullough received a warm welcome back to Dodger Stadium. He was greeted by a parade of hugs from his old players during batting practice (including a leaping embrace into his arms from Mookie Betts). He was honored with a pregame ceremony on the field to receive his glitzy 2024 World Series ring. He received the highest of compliments from Dodgers manager Dave Roberts during his pregame media address.
“Clayton is a very, very special person, a very special coach,” Roberts said, describing McCullough as “a game changer” for last year’s championship team.
That, however, was as much hospitality as McCullough would get in his return to the Southland.
In the Dodgers’ 7-6 win over the Marlins, McCullough’s old club outlasted his new one in a game that never should have been that close, the Dodgers blowing an early five-run lead only to walk it off on Tommy Edman’s winning two-run single in the bottom of the 10th.
Monday should have been a much more straightforward win for the Dodgers.
Shohei Ohtani scored in the first inning on a leadoff single, a steal of second base and an RBI single from Freddie Freeman. Betts doubled the lead in the third with a bases-loaded hit. Former Marlins shortstop Miguel Rojas tacked on again in the fourth, roping a double down the left-field line for his first RBI and extra-base hit of the season.
Then, in what felt like a game-sealing sequence, Teoscar Hernández followed Freeman’s leadoff walk in the fifth with a sky-high two-run blast to left — making it 5-0 with his team-leading ninth long ball of the season and fourth in the last five games.
Instead, a half-inning later, the Marlins made it a brand new ball game.
After five scoreless innings, Dodgers right-hander Dustin May was chased with one out in the sixth, giving up a run on two singles and a walk to get the hook after 83 pitches. With two left-handed hitters looming, Roberts summoned southpaw Anthony Banda from the bullpen. A sensible plan in theory, but with a disastrous outcome two batters later.
Lacking any consistent command, Banda walked his first batter on five pitches before falling behind again to pinch-hitting righty Dane Myers. Facing a three-and-one count, Banda tried to climb the ladder with a 96 mph fastball. Myers, however, was all over it, clobbering a no-doubt grand slam to left that stunned Chavez Ravine into silence. Just like that, the score was 5-5.
The Dodgers squandered chances to answer. They put their first two batters aboard in the sixth, had a runner at second with one out in the seventh and got a single to lead off the eighth. They couldn’t cash in on any of those opportunities, though.
The Marlins then took the lead on Jesús Sánchez’s two-out double in the top of the 10th.
In the end, however, the Dodgers survived.
Andy Pages led the bottom of the 10th with a walk. Kiké Hernández advanced Pages and automatic runner Michael Conforto to second and third with a sacrifice bunt. Then, after coming off the bench earlier in the game, Edman walked it off with a line drive single to right.