Dodgers’ long trip ends with slugfest loss to Rays
The Dodgers scored 10 runs on 12 hits, including five home runs -- back-to-back home runs on two occasions. But that wasn't enough to beat the Rays.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Forget bigger bases and rule changes. If Major League Baseball wants to put more action and scoring into games, apparently it just needs to do one thing — start them at 11:30 in the morning.
Like the drunk uncle at your Memorial Day picnic, the hitters started early and kept coming back for more Sunday. The Tampa Bay Rays scored six runs in one inning. The Dodgers hit back-to-back home runs — twice. Trayce Thompson entered the game hitless since April 17, then didn’t make an out. Gavin Stone’s career ERA ballooned to 14.40 — but he still hasn’t taken a loss.
Starting before most of their fans on the West Coast had even taken the potato salad out of the refrigerator, the Dodgers and Rays combined for 21 runs on 28 hits, including 10 for extra bases (five home runs by the Dodgers). The Rays even stole five bases. With all of that, it was a ground out that drove in the winning run as the Rays beat the Dodgers 11-10.
The early-starting epic (necessitated by MLB’s deal with the streaming service Peacock) ended a 4-6 road trip that seemed endless. The Dodgers went from St. Louis (where a hot Cardinals team took three of four), Atlanta (where the Dodgers took two out of three and reclaimed the best record in the National League) and Tampa (home to the best team in baseball). It could have gone better — the Dodgers lost three one-run games on the trip.
“A slugfest we lost by one run — those games are not what we expected at 11:35,” said Freddie Freeman who had his 15th and 16th doubles of the month and extended his hitting streak to 17 games.
“It feels like we played a lot better than 4-6, in my opinion. A lot of games that could have been lost a whole lot of different ways, and we came back and kept fighting and fighting. Longest trip of the year. It’s over. I just like the fact we kept grinding every single game this whole road trip.”
Stone will always remember this trip for the mark it left on his ERA.
The well-regarded prospect’s luster has dimmed three starts into his big-league career and his time in the rotation might be over for now. The Rays treated him like a batting-practice pitcher, going 10 for 16 in his two innings. They scored six times in the second inning, a torturous experience for Stone that included five consecutive two-out hits.
“I think you’ve just got to stay positive,” Stone said. “I’ve got to go back to work on fine-tuning some things.”
He will likely do that work back in Triple-A. Michael Grove took a shutout into the sixth inning of his second rehab start with Oklahoma City Saturday and could replace Stone in the rotation next weekend.
“He’s had some tough lineups to go against. My thought is he’s going to be better for it,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of Stone who has faced the Phillies, Cardinals and Rays. “But given how today went, I think it’s prudent to re-assess and make sure that whatever we do is best for Gavin and best for us.
“But I do think that looking back, this was good for him. We wouldn’t do this to a player we didn’t feel could handle it emotionally.”
The question now is whether it would do Stone more harm than good to keep having major-league hitters remind him of how much he still has to learn.
“That’s why I think it’s smart to have that conversation. I don’t know that answer yet,” Roberts said. “So we’ll all get together and figure out the best course of action because I think, like most things, you could debate either way. So that’s what we’ll have to figure out.”
Stone wasn’t alone in his misery this weekend. Dodgers pitchers gave up 25 runs on 38 hits in the series and the Rays batted .345 in the three games.
The Dodgers fought their way back Sunday with back-to-back home runs by Chris Taylor and Max Muncy in the second inning and J.D. Martinez and Taylor in the sixth.
The most satisfying hit of the day, though, had to be Thompson’s RBI single in the second inning. A hard ground ball through the infield, it ended an historic 0-for-39 nightmare for Thompson, the longest hitless streak by a Dodgers position player since 1909.
“I was expecting a champagne toast like when Freddie hit 300 (home runs) or when Kersh got his 200th win,” Thompson joked.
So relieved was Thompson that he added another single, a solo home run and a walk in four plate appearances.
“I knew it was coming,” he said. “You can’t do all this work and do all this stuff and all this preparation without believing and having conviction and all that and just going out there and just playing the game. But it’s been hard for me.
“I think last year I remember I was on a tough stretch and then I got on base for nine or 10 straight at-bats. This game is tough. You’ve just got to keep going.”
The Rays must have been exhausted from all the robust swings they took this weekend. The game-winning rally in the seventh inning featured just one ball hit out of the infield.
It started with an infield single when Victor Gonzalez couldn’t beat Luke Raley to first base.
“It’s a tough play. It’s a tweener,” Roberts said. “Just from my seat, you see a ball that has funky spin on it and Freddie is trying to let it spin out essentially so he has to give way so he doesn’t get caught in between on a ball that is spinning sideways. It looked like Victor broke initially and it’s a play that should be made 100 out of 100 times, but it wasn’t made that time. I’m not here to place blame, but it’s a play that should’ve been executed and we didn’t.
“It just sucks when ultimately that was the winning run.”
Yandy Diaz’s one-out single off Brusdar Graterol was the only ball that reached the outfield in the inning. It moved Raley to third and he broke a 10-10 tie, trotting home on a ground out to second by Wander Franco.
“We were in every single one of these ballgames and we had a chance to win every single one of them,” said Muncy who left Sunday’s game with a hamstring injury and will likely have an MRI on Monday. “We felt like we played really good. I know the win-loss record doesn’t necessarily show that but we played some tough teams on this trip and we just got to take the positives out of it and get ready to go back home after a really long road trip.”