Dodger Thoughts

Jon Weisman's outlet for dealing psychologically with the Los Angeles Dodgers, baseball and life

Dodgers can’t save Maeda’s strong start

Juan Ocampo/Los Angeles Dodgers

Kenta Maeda pitched six shutout innings for the second straight game. (Juan Ocampo/Los Angeles Dodgers)

By Jon Weisman

Dave Roberts preached faith in the Dodger bullpen after its latest tough outing.

For the third time in the past four games, Dodger relievers surrendered a lead, with Pedro Baez and Chris Hatcher each allowing home runs in a 4-2 loss today to Arizona in the Dodger Stadium home opener (recapped by MLB.com).

With his team at 4-4 after eight games, Roberts said it was too early to contemplate changes to the bullpen.

“Right now, you want to give these guys confidence and give them opportunities,” he said. “I expect to be ahead in a lot of games late, and we’re gonna need ’em, if we want to have a great season. So for me, it’s way too early to think about changing the roles.

“You’re seeing certain pitches that aren’t being executed, and over a certain time if that continues, then you’ve got to kind of entertain (changes). But right now, we’re just way too early.”

Nick Ahmed became the second position player batting ninth to homer off the Dodgers in the past three games, popping a 349-foot homer off Baez, who was looking to protect a 1-0 lead for Kenta Maeda. Only three homers had been shorter in MLB this season.

“The pitch that Petey threw to Ahmed,” Roberts said, “that was a 1-2 change that was down — it almost seemed like A.J. (Ellis) was getting ready to block the ball … and he hit a homer.”

The tiebreaking homer in the eighth had a more logical length and source — familiar side-thorn Paul Goldschmidt, who blasted a 3-0 fastball from Hatcher 425 feet to center. Dodger relievers have now allowed five homers in their first 21 1/3 innings this season.

According to Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic, the homer was also the first of Goldschmidt’s career on a 3-0 count.

“He’s not trying to throw a fastball center-cut,” Roberts said of Hatcher. “It kind of ran back over, and it was thigh-high.

“It’s a long season, and there are going to be ups and downs and guys are gonna struggle. … Right now, these guys aren’t throwing the ball as well as they’d like to or we’d like ’em to. But they’d be the first to say that.”

Two more runs scored in the ninth off Louis Coleman, putting the Dodgers in a bigger hole as they hoped to salvage another pleasing start from Maeda.

One day after turning 28, Maeda hit the first batter he faced and gave up a loud double to the last, but still pitched his second straight game of six shutout innings with four strikeouts.

He was at his best beginning in the second inning, when he induced three straight outs after putting runners on second and third with none out. That launched a streak in which he retired 11 straight batters (Howie Kendrick error notwithstanding), and his only baserunner of the fifth was retired on a caught stealing with Goldschmidt at the plate.

In Maeda’s final inning, with Wellington Castillo on first and two out in the top of the sixth, Jake Lamb lashed a double down the right-field line. Yasiel Puig corraled it, fired to third baseman Justin Turner (who was in right field on a shift), and Turner relayed home to Ellis for a putout.

“Another great start by Kenta,” Roberts said. “He just can do a lot of different things, has a lot of different weapons. He competes, and actually can hit a little bit. But after six innings right there, I felt that he was stressed a little earlier, and then in that inning there was some stress and I felt that was a good time to get him out and go to the pen and give Petey a clean inning.

According to Elias, Maeda is the third Dodger pitcher to begin his career with two scoreless starts, following fellow K-men Karl Spooner and Kazuhisa Ishii. Only three Los Angeles Dodger pitchers have begun with more consecutive scoreless innings than Maeda’s 12: Dave Stewart (18 1/3), Bob Welch (15 1/3) and Pedro Astacio (14).

“Kenta’s a really bright guy, and he’s continuing to gather information,” Roberts said. “And actually, there were some times where he shook A.J., which is good. That’s kind of a sign that he’s starting to learn the hitters and learn their swings.”

The Dodgers scored first on a pair of singles (including Kendrick in his first at-bat of 2016) and Ellis’ perfect squeeze bunt. That was mostly it for the offense, save for two hits apiece by reserve outfielders Kiké Hernandez and Trayce Thompson, and this natty bit of hand jive at second base by Puig.

[mlbvideo id=”586026283″ width=”550″ height=”308″ /]

Corey Seager extended his hitting streak (dating back to last season) to 11 games with a ninth-inning leadoff double, and came around to score on two infield outs, but that was all for Los Angeles on this day.

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8 Comments

  1. paulgarzajr

    Eight games into the season and it is already time to panic! The bullpen is a total disaster. It now has blown half the games played. This can’t go on any longer and hope to have a playoff team.

    • Easy, this was never a playoff team for me, so no reason to panic. 75-85 wins is this teams destiny.

  2. Sorry, Doc, but I’m not drinking the Kool-aid. Give the ‘pen confidence and opportunities? I’m sorry, but how many more opportunities are they going to squander? Back in spring training they showed signs of yet again blowing leads and nothing was done except throw more bodies at the bump. It didn’t work then, when it didn’t count, and it’s not helping now that the games do in fact count. How many shutouts will the bullpen lose before the team gets serious about fixing the obvious problem? Your patient’s not doing well, Doc, and your treatment doesn’t seem to be working. It may be time to rethink your diagnosis.

  3. Here’s to Puig giving Vin plenty more to marvel over in his last season. This could be fun.

  4. oldbrooklynfan

    The bullpen wasn’t great but there was no room to work with. It’s still the lack of offense that hurts this team. It seems when the pitching clicks the offense doesn’t.

  5. Last year, Dodgers were first in HR in NL. So far this year, they are 13th Last year they were 2nd best in BB’s. This year they are 13th. The BB’s and HR’s have to start kicking in for this team to score some runs.

  6. Hatcher brings to mind Earl Weaver’s great line about one of his players, of whom he said, “I gave him more chances than I gave my ex-wife.”

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