{"id":291330,"date":"2025-09-04T05:31:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T05:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/291330\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T05:31:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T05:31:18","slug":"slumping-dodgers-lose-again-to-the-lowly-pirates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/291330\/","title":{"rendered":"Slumping Dodgers lose again to the lowly Pirates"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was a pivotal moment, in a pivotal game, in what\u2019s become a pivotal week for the Dodgers in the National League West<\/a> standings.<\/p>\n

Which, rather predictably given their recently floundering form, meant they found a new way to mess it all up.<\/p>\n

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In the top of the second inning on Wednesday night at PNC Park, the Dodgers<\/a> appeared to be in optimal position.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, the second-place San Diego Padres had been swept by the woebegone Baltimore Orioles, opening the door for the Dodgers to extend their 2\u00bd-game lead in the division. And despite trailing by a run in their own showdown against a last-place team, the Dodgers had the Pittsburgh Pirates on the ropes, loading the bases with no outs for a chance to take the lead.<\/p>\n

The task, at that point, was simple.<\/p>\n

Get the ball in play. Manufacture some early scoring. And, at the very least, set a positive tone for a night in which the NL West lead could grow.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThat\u2019s a situation where you get shorter with your swing, use the big part of the field and you\u2019ve got to drive in a run,\u201d manager Dave Roberts said.<\/p>\n

That approach, however, never materialized.<\/p>\n

Over the rest of an inexplicable 3-0 loss to<\/a> the Pirates, what happened next would instead loom large.<\/p>\n

First, second-year outfielder Andy Pages came up, worked another full count against Pittsburgh starter Braxton Ashcraft \u2026 then went down swinging chasing a slider that would\u2019ve been ball four.<\/p>\n

Next, rookie infielder Alex Freeland again ran the count full, got an elevated slider up in the zone to hit \u2026 but kept the bat on his shoulder as the umpire rung him up for a called third strike.<\/p>\n

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A Kik\u00e9 Hern\u00e1ndez flyout would ultimately end the inning. But it was the first two at-bats that had Roberts fuming afterward.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never want to say that one inning kind of win or loses a game,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cBut the second inning, bases loaded, nobody out \u2014 I just felt that we had two bad at-bats and didn’t come away with anything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat flipped the game,\u201d Roberts later added. \u201cIt flipped the momentum.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more: \u2018Want to see that edge.\u2019 How Dodgers hope Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez turns around difficult season<\/a><\/p>\n

Indeed, on a night the Dodgers (78-61) failed to score any of their 11 baserunners or record a hit in seven at-bats with men in scoring position, no sequence was more frustrating than their second-inning fizzle.<\/p>\n

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It was the latest epitome of the team failing to produce in a clutch situation. Another example of their roster flunking some basic fundamentals.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve got to collectively get all of us on board understanding the magnitude of each at-bat, each situation,\u201d Roberts bemoaned from his office postgame. \u201cI sound repetitive [about how] it’s got to get better. But I do believe that having the right approach, the right mindset, the right urgency in a particular at-bat lends itself to better results.”<\/p>\n

This has been a recurring theme for the Dodgers during the second half of the season; the kind of fine-margin miscues that have haunted them during a perplexing 22-29 stretch since July 4.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, it\u2019s their big-name superstars that falter. In other cases, it\u2019s younger contributors like Pages and Freeland who fail to execute when required.<\/p>\n

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The only constant: Every time the Dodgers seem to be turning a corner, they find another way to trip themselves up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do believe that the guys that we have in the room are capable of putting together consistent team at-bats of urgency from the first pitch on,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cBut at the end of the day \u2014 and I’m sure our players are echoing the same message \u2014 we just got to get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n

This week\u2019s series at PNC Park (the fourth straight the Dodgers have dropped here over the last four years) has exemplified the club\u2019s maddening current rut in other ways.<\/p>\n

One night, they explode at the plate for seven runs \u2026 only for their pitching staff to give up nine as it did in Tuesday\u2019s loss.<\/p>\n

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The next, they piece together a decent pitching effort (even after Shohei Ohtani was scratched from his scheduled start because of an illness) \u2026 only for the offense to squander every single opportunity they had to take control of the contest (and lose catcher Will Smith along the way to a bruised hand he suffered on an errant foul ball, though postgame X-rays came back negative).<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t really put it together at all for a while now,\u201d first baseman Freddie Freeman said. \u201cWe need to start playing better.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the Pirates jumped in front in the first inning, when Bryan Reynolds homered in the 12th pitch of his at-bat off spot starter Emmet Sheehan. Andrew McCutchen doubled the lead in the second, adding to the sting of the Dodgers\u2019 squandered bases-loaded opportunity with a line-drive home run in the game\u2019s very next at-bat.<\/p>\n

After that, \u201cwe just really couldn’t put anything else together,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n

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Or, more precisely, they failed to finish any other chances off.<\/p>\n

Read more: What’s behind Clayton Kershaw’s pitching revival in his 18th season? ‘The bowl’<\/a><\/p>\n

The Dodgers loaded the bases again with two out in the third, before Alex Call hit a dribbler up the first-base line to retire the side.<\/p>\n

The team had two runners aboard again in the fifth and seventh, but continued to come up empty each and every time.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had guys on, we just didn\u2019t get the hit,\u201d said Freeman, who rolled into a fifth-inning double-play to extinguish that threat. \u201cFrustrating night.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only saving grace right now is that the Padres (who have lost four in a row while dealing with a string of deflating injuries) haven\u2019t made up ground against them.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m very much aware of that,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cBut they\u2019re feeling the same thing we are. We\u2019ve got to control what we can control. And we\u2019re certainly not.\u201d<\/p>\n

A different approach in Wednesday\u2019s second inning might have changed all that. Instead, it served as another regrettable failure, turning a potentially pivotal chance to stretch the division lead into one of the season’s most dispiriting losses.<\/p>\n

Smith update<\/p>\n

Smith exited Wednesday’s game after the second inning, when a foul tip bounced off the dirt and hit his right throwing hand as it was hanging behind his right thigh.<\/p>\n

Because Smith’s X-rays came back negative, Roberts said the club was hopeful he could avoid the injured list. However, given the swelling and soreness he was feeling postgame, the team was still planning to call up a third catcher on Thursday for more roster insurance.<\/p>\n

Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.<\/a><\/p>\n

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a pivotal moment, in a pivotal game, in what\u2019s become a pivotal week for the Dodgers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291331,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[909,22432,1151,1384,47,5,15154,5343,1560,39,7907,815,5953,4,64,44574,43259,18,468,1558,1535],"class_list":{"0":"post-291330","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-alex-call","9":"tag-alex-freeland","10":"tag-andrew-mccutchen","11":"tag-andy-pages","12":"tag-baltimore-orioles","13":"tag-baseball","14":"tag-braxton-ashcraft","15":"tag-bryan-reynolds","16":"tag-dave-roberts","17":"tag-dodgers","18":"tag-emmet-sheehan","19":"tag-freddie-freeman","20":"tag-kike-hernandez","21":"tag-mlb","22":"tag-pittsburgh-pirates","23":"tag-pivotal-game","24":"tag-pivotal-moment","25":"tag-san-diego-padres","26":"tag-shohei-ohtani","27":"tag-the-dodgers","28":"tag-will-smith"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115144391780231840","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291330"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291330\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}