In a heated game that could have some repercussions on the playoff picture, the Los Angeles Dodgers found themselves down 4-2 in the bottom of the ninth inning against their closest NL West competitor, San Diego Padres. Now, this game wasn't exactly must-win for the Dodgers, as they still held the division lead over the Padres by multiple games. But a Dodgers win puts them one step closer to clinching another division crown. However, their Tuesday night game ended on such a bummer note, as Miguel Rojas, with runners at first and second base and no outs, inexplicably ended up grounding into a triple play.
Never has a game-ending and playoff-clinching triple play occurred prior to tonight, per Sarah Langs of MLB.com, and Rojas finds himself on the wrong side of history. Per Mike DiGiovanna of the Los Angeles Times, the Dodgers shortstop revealed that he made a judgment call; with runners at first and second, the call on the first pitch was for him to bunt.
But with bunt sign being taken off after a first-pitch strike, Rojas decided to swing, believing that “he could get a hard ground ball through” thanks to the positioning of Manny Machado and Xander Bogaerts. Suffice to say, the Dodgers shortstop's decision did not work out, and he immediately regretted it.
“I feel like I let the team down,” Rojas said.
Miguel Rojas is in the middle of a career year from the plate, so it's not as if him swinging there was a terrible decision. The safe play was to bunt to safely advance the runners (therefore eliminating the possibility of a double play with one out in the ninth). This would have set the Dodgers' top of the order up nicely, with Shohei Ohtani on the on-deck circle.
That is the heartbreaking part of it all, as Ohtani and Mookie Betts, no offense to Rojas, would have given the Dodgers a better chance at driving in the runs they needed to, perhaps, take a walk-off victory. But now, they will have to put this mistake in the rearview mirror and not allow it to snowball into something worse. They have two more games against the Padres coming up, and if they manage to win those games, they will win the division — so their focus should be on that and that alone.
The pressure is on the Dodgers
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The Padres are playing with found money; they have been playing catch-up with the Dodgers all-season long, and in the final week of the season, they are as close to LA as they've been in a long time, as they are now just two games behind them with five games remaining in the season.
These next two games will be of utmost importance for the Dodgers and Padres. Win these next two games, and the Padres will tie the Dodgers for the division lead, although the difficulty level in the respective teams' final series of the season couldn't be any more different. LA will finish the season with a three-game series against the Colorado Rockies, while San Diego will go to the Valley to face a team still fighting for their playoff lives, Arizona Diamondbacks.
