What the Dodgers hoped was a drought-busting, six-run, eighth-inning rally in New York on Wednesday looked more like a mirage Friday night, their bats going back into sleep mode for most of a 4-1 loss to the last-place Colorado Rockies in front of a crowd of 47,542 in Dodger Stadium.
An offense that showed signs of life during a three-game sweep of the Mets managed only one run and four hits in seven innings off Rockies sinker specialist Dakota Hudson, a 29-year-old right-hander who entered with a 1-7 record and 5.54 ERA in 10 starts this season and did not throw a pitch harder than 91.6 mph Friday night.
“The sinker-baller is sort of an outlier now in baseball,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of Hudson. “It’s [a pitch with depth], and it just seemed like he was putting the ball on the ground, getting us to roll over, missing the barrel. We couldn’t really muster anything against him tonight.”
The Dodgers, trailing 4-0, did stir in the eighth inning when they loaded the bases with no outs on a Gavin Lux double and a Miguel Rojas walk off Hudson, and an Andy Pages single off reliever Victor Vodnik, a hard-throwing right-hander.
That set the table for the top of a Dodgers order that features three of the best hitters in baseball — Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman.
“Bases loaded, no outs … it was setting up to be a good spot for us,” Roberts said. “I would not have wanted anybody else up at that point of time.”
There would be no dramatic comeback. Betts grounded into a 6-4-3 double play, Lux scoring to trim the deficit to 4-1, Ohtani walked and Freeman struck out on a 94-mph full-count fastball from left-hander Jalen Beeks, who later retired the side in order in the ninth for his sixth save.
Betts, Ohtani and Freeman combined to go hitless with one walk in 11 at-bats, 10 of them against Hudson.
“He has a good sinker that he throws at the bottom of the zone,” said Lux, who had an infield single and a double off Hudson. “It’s tough to get it in the air, as you can tell with all the ground balls he got. He did a good job.”
Dodgers right-hander Walker Buehler, making his fifth start in his return from a second Tommy John surgery, took the loss, giving up four runs — three earned — and six hits in six innings, striking out seven and walking four.
Buehler escaped a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the first by striking out Kris Bryant with a 97-mph fastball on the inside corner and Brendan Rodgers with a 96-mph fastball on the outside corner, but he needed 28 pitches to complete the inning, a heavy, out-of-the-gate workload that seemed to take a toll a few innings later.
Ezequiel Tovar singled with one out in the third, and Ryan McMahon walked. Buehler got Elias Diaz to fly to right field for the second out, but Bryant roped an RBI single to left field for a 1-0 lead.
Rodgers followed with an RBI single to center field that went under the glove of Pages and rolled to the wall for an error that allowed Bryant to score from first for a 3-0 lead and Rodgers to take third.
Buehler walked Elehuris Montero before getting Brenton Doyle to fly to right on his 26th pitch of the inning, but he hung a first-pitch slider in the fourth to Tovar, who crushed a solo homer to left-center, his eighth of the season, for a 4-0 Colorado lead.
“The first inning was a long, tough inning,” Buehler said. “You’re happy to get out of that kind of unscathed, but it’s deflating for our team when you have a first inning like that. You want to come home from a road trip and build momentum, and I did the opposite of that.”
Buehler retired the side in order in the fifth and sixth innings, striking out Jake Cave looking with a nice 89-mph cut-fastball on his 92nd and final pitch of the game, Roberts calling the pitcher’s ability to complete six innings “a win in itself.”
But Buehler, who went 23 months between big league starts, was not in the mood for moral victories. The erstwhile Dodgers ace is 1-3 with a 4.32 ERA in five choppy starts, with 24 strikeouts and seven walks in 25 innings. He has shown good velocity and stamina and has looked sharp at times, but his command has wavered, and he has given up six homers.
“Physically, I’ve probably exceeded where I thought I was gonna be, but performance-wise, I feel like [crap],” Buehler said, when asked to assess his overall performance after five starts. “I’m not anywhere close to where I want to be.
“You think with a layoff like that, you’re not gonna have the same expectations you always have, but when you start tallying these starts, it’s kind of put-up or shut-up time for me, at least mentally, and these last two obviously haven’t been good enough.”
Travel issue
The Dodgers were extremely grateful for Thursday’s off day after spending all of Wednesday night on a tarmac at Newark (N.J.) Liberty International Airport, their charter flight home delayed first by weather, then by mechanical problems.
“That was not fun at all,” veteran reliever Daniel Hudson said. “By the time they got the plane fixed, the pilots got timed out. They brought in another crew from an international flight that didn’t take off, but then they said they were fatigued and couldn’t fly. So they had to call in other backups. It was wild.”
The team finally departed around 5:30 a.m. EDT and landed in Los Angeles at about 7:30 a.m. PDT.
“We were on the tarmac, I think, for 8 ½ hours, so we got even more familiar with one another,” Roberts said. “Thank goodness we didn’t have to play [Thursday night].
“It was kind of an abbreviated off day, but it’s no excuse. I thought coming in today, our guys were ready. You have to give their guy credit. He pitched a heckuva ballgame.”
Closing time
An injury ravaged Dodgers bullpen got one major piece back Friday when closer Evan Phillips, out since May 5 because of a right hamstring strain, was activated off the injured list. To clear a roster spot, right-hander Elieser Hernández was designated for assignment.
“Having a guy at the back end that you trust, who was off to a really good start to the season, is great,” Roberts said. “It allows me to deploy guys in different lanes, different leverage spots.”
Blake Treinen and Hudson were tasked with holding narrow leads in the late innings in Phillips’ absence, but Roberts said Phillips, who had an 0.66 ERA in 14 games and converted all eight of his save opportunities before going on the injured list, will return in a closing role.
“They haven’t said anything to me, but I certainly hope I get the pitch when it matters,” Phillips said before the game. “Whether that’s with a lead in the seventh, eighth or ninth inning doesn’t matter to me. You know that.”
Bobby Miller, who has been sidelined since April 14 because of shoulder inflammation, will make his third start for Class-A Rancho Cucamonga at Lake Elsinore on Saturday night, with a target of four to five innings and about 70 pitches.
Roberts said the hard-throwing right-hander, who went 1-1 with a 5.40 ERA in three starts for the Dodgers, will make at least one more rehabilitation start, for triple-A Oklahoma City, “and then we’ll have a real conversation” about Miller rejoining the rotation.
Relievers Ryan Brasier, out since April 29 because of a right calf strain, and Joe Kelly, out since May 6 because of a shoulder strain, are weeks away from returning. Brasier has kept his arm activated and Kelly is playing catch at 90 feet.
