LOS ANGELES — The soft underbelly of the Dodgers, the concern that their fans have had from early July on, exposed itself in the seventh inning Tuesday night.
The 121st World Series will head back cross-continent for at least a Game 6 at the end of the week in Toronto’s Rogers Centre. After winning a classic 18-inning duel in Game 3 on Monday night, one that featured key contributions from a series of Dodgers relievers, old bad habits resurfaced Tuesday night in Game 4 as the Blue Jays evened the series with a 6-2 victory.
This next sentence should not be a surprise to anyone that has followed the Dodgers all season: The bullpen, and on this night specifically Anthony Banda and Blake Treinen, let things get out of hand in a four-run seventh that turned a one-run game into a comfortable 6-1 lead for Toronto.
For what it’s worth, this development allowed those planning to return to Toronto for potential Games 6 and 7 to go ahead and hit “confirm” on their flight and hotel bookings.
But if you’re a Dodger fan, your team just gave back the home-field advantage it earned by winning Game 2. The euphoria from Freddie Freeman’s 18th-inning walk-off home run on Monday was short-lived. And once again, if the Dodgers are to win a World Series they will have to do it on the road. Of their eight titles, they’ve only clinched one at home.
Relief pitching has been the glaring flaw all along for a team that has seemed so capable of defending its championship. Alex Vesia’s absence because of a personal matter has scrambled things somewhat, but that’s not an explanation for why, through much of the second half of the season, the guys who are supposed to be leverage relievers have been either way too inconsistent for anyone’s comfort. (Or, in the case of certain individuals who didn’t make the World Series roster, consistently poor.)
Treinen, for example, was dreadful in the month of September, with five losses en route to a 2-7 regular season.
He seemed to have straightened himself out in the early rounds of the postseason, though Game 2 of the NL Division Series against Philadelphia (two runs allowed without getting an out) wasn’t a good sign, nor were Game 4 of the NLCS against Milwaukee (one run allowed in one-third of an inning), or Monday night against the Blue Jays (three hits and the go-ahead run before getting the final out of the seventh).
Banda’s dependability has slipped in the postseason. He allowed one of two inherited runners to score in Game 4 against Milwaukee, but the Dodgers had a 5-0 lead at the time. In Game 1 in Toronto last Friday he entered the game in the sixth and allowed Addison Barger’s pinch-hit grand slam and a later two-run homer to Alejandro Kirk, helping put things out of reach in what turned out to be an 11-4 loss.
Such developments can be deflating. And while you can’t say that the relief performances that kept the game within reach in Monday’s 18-inning victory went to waste with Tuesday’s loss, it must feel like any progress achieved in Game 3 was negated in Game 4.
What definitely did go to waste was another strong pitching performance by Ohtani. He gave up a two-run home run to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the second inning, but retired 12 of the next 13 men he faced and kept the Dodgers within 2-1 going into the seventh, having allowed four hits while striking out six to that point on 93 pitches.
But, as Joe Davis noted on the Fox national broadcast, the last time Ohtani got an out in the seventh inning as a pitcher was as an Angel, on July 27, 2023 in Detroit. That day he pitched a complete game in a 6-0 victory over the Tigers. (The Angels were an over-.500 team at that time, 53-49, so this seems longer ago than it actually was.)
Tuesday night, Ohtani got into the seventh inning but couldn’t get that elusive out. Daulton Varsho led off with a single and Ernie Clement doubled, and Dave Roberts made the call for Banda.
“Whether it’s during the regular season or the postseason, my goal is to be able to pitch six innings,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. “And the situation, this game, I wanted to go seven, and it was regrettable that I wasn’t able to finish that inning.”
Believe me, Roberts understands both the necessity and the risks of going to the ’pen. Remember that in Game 1, the goal was to get starter Blake Snell at least through the sixth. He lasted three batters in that inning before the Jays jumped on relievers Emmet Sheehan and Banda to build their nine-run inning.
Tuesday, Roberts said, pitching coach Mark Prior “asked (Ohtani) in the sixth inning how much more he had. He said he had three more innings. So he’s very self-aware of his body. I thought that the sixth inning was one of his best innings. And where he was at, the way the ball was coming out, I felt good (about it).
“Just kind of happened right there where (Varsho) gets a base hit and then Clement hits a ball in the gap, and it just kind of happened right there where I just felt we needed to find a way to get a punch-out and (to) get Banda on three lefties.”
Andrés Giménez, with the Dodgers’ infield playing in, worked the count to 3-and-2 against Banda and stroked a single to left field to score Varsho. Right-handed hitting Isiah Kiner-Falefa, the No. 9 hitter, showed bunt but then got the count in his favor, 3-0, before fouling off a pitch and then hitting a liner at third baseman Max Muncy. He threw to first to double up Giménez, but the call was challenged by the Blue Jays and then reversed.
Toronto manager John Schneider sent the right-handed Ty France to hit for Nathan Lukes, and Banda got him on an infield grounder that scored Clement to make it 4-1. He then walked Guerrero intentionally and Roberts replaced him with Treinen, who gave up RBI singles to Bo Bichette and Barger to make it 6-1 and essentially put it out of reach.
Before Tuesday, in the postseason Treinen had inherited five runners and not let any of them score, and even with his issues in the second half of the season inherited runners weren’t a concern. In 32 regular-season outings, he had just 13 inherited runners and allowed four to score. This night, he entered with runners on first and second, and both scored.
But this was a night when the Blue Jays’ offensive style – basically, take what the other guys give you – was effective.
“That seventh inning, they built an inning and we didn’t have an answer,” Roberts said.
On this stage, with an even series, the Dodgers had better find answers. Quickly.
jalexander@scng.com