NEW YORK — Even Mother Nature is conspiring to test the limits of the Dodgers’ bullpen.
Pitching for the third time in four days, including his first multi-inning outing of the season, Tanner Scott let a three-run lead get away in the ninth inning as the New York Mets rallied to send the game into extra innings. The two teams combined to strand five baserunners without scoring in the 10th, and the Mets left the bases loaded in the 11th.
The Mets loaded them again with one out in the bottom of the 12th inning, but the Dodgers went with a five-man infield and turned a double play to extend the game.
Finally, Teoscar Hernandez led off the 13th inning with an RBI double – the first hit by either team in the extra innings – and the Dodgers scored twice, recovering a 7-5 victory over the Mets early Saturday morning local time.
The game was the Dodgers’ longest since a 16-inning game against the San Diego Padres in August 2021.
“You almost sort of go into playoff mode, in the sense of trying to count outs and figure out how you can maximize your arms,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “And even coming into the series, we were pretty taxed.”
Taxed indeed. The Dodgers already led the majors in innings pitched by relievers (a total that doesn’t even include the number of ‘openers’ they have employed). They padded that lead with 11 more innings Friday.
“It’s a tough way to start the road trip, depleting the bullpen like that obviously,” said Friday’s starter, Clayton Kershaw, who pitched two hitless innings before the rain delay and didn’t return to the mound. “But the Mets had to do the same thing and they lost. That doesn’t feel nearly as good.”
Scott’s fourth blown save of the season (and second in these three appearances) came after the Dodgers took a 5-2 lead into the ninth inning of a game that was interrupted for 98 minutes by rain.
“Obviously I’d like to keep pitching. I tried to stay as loose as I could but it just kept going longer,” Kershaw said. “In hindsight, they probably should have waited to start the game for awhile. Tough to have our bullpen end up covering 11 innings.”
Matt Sauer handled the first three well enough and Ben Casparius was outstanding in his three, retiring nine of the 10 batters he faced, six on strikeouts.
Scott entered in the ninth inning to close it out, but he gave up a leadoff single to Starling Marte and walked Pete Alonso with one out to bring the tying run to the plate. Jeff McNeil sliced a line drive into the right field corner that rattled around long enough for him to reach third and two runs to score.
Tyrone Taylor followed with a game-tying RBI single and Scott was done.
“I didn’t even think about it like that,” Scott said of his workload this week. “I just wish I would have located better and got guys out.”
The Mets’ comeback extended a game that stretched both the Citi Field tarp and the rulebook.
Rain stopped play in the third inning and two rare rulings affected the scoring.
Center fielder Taylor and right fielder Juan Soto converged on a Mookie Betts fly ball, each trying to catch it and creating a juggling act. The ball bounced from their gloves to Taylor’s bare hand before he secured it.
Michael Conforto took off from second base as the ball was bouncing between the two – as is the baserunner’s right. The Mets challenged the play, arguing that Conforto had left too soon. But replay – and a quick review of the rulebook confirmed the call.
Both scored on two-out RBI hits from Will Smith and Teoscar Hernandez.
The Mets cut into the lead with a solo home run from Baty in the third inning and a rulebook-aided run in the fourth.
Marte started the inning with a bunt, going to second when Max Muncy’s barehanded attempt ended with a wild throw to first. Marte moved to second on a Soto ground out then tagged up as Hernandez caught Alonso’s fly ball to right field.
Hernandez made a fantastic throw that beat Marte to the plate in what appeared to be an inning-ending double play. But third-base umpire Tripp Gibson waved the play off, reaching into another corner of the rulebook and charging Muncy with obstruction for stepping into Marte’s line of sight, blocking him from seeing Hernandez make the catch.
“I know the rule,” Muncy said. “But every third baseman is taught – you kind of just wander over, and as long as you’re not standing right next to the guy, it’s never an issue. You don’t look at him. You don’t make sure you’re lining up your path. You just kind of walk over and you just stand there. I felt like I was far enough away.
“He felt that I wasn’t far enough away. He felt that I was purposely doing it, and he felt that I made a conscious effort to stand in the way. Every third baseman in the league does that. Never seen it called, and it was actually called twice tonight. He called it in the extra innings when (Andy) Pages had the sac fly, he actually called it on their guy, but it didn’t matter because our guy scored. It was called twice tonight. Haven’t seen it called my entire career.”
Muncy (who has made seven errors already this season, six on throws) made up for his mistake with an RBI single in the fifth. Pages followed with another two-out RBI single to stretch the Dodgers’ lead to 5-2.
After Scott surrendered the lead, Alex Vesia, Lou Trivino, Anthony Banda and Luis Garcia combined to hold the Mets hitless over the final four innings.
“There was a lot of good things from our ’pen today. Certainly from Luis and Banda right there, and obviously Caspy continues to be good,” Roberts said. “There was some usage certainly that we’re going to talk through as far as protecting some downside in the next handful of days. But there were some good things that came out of tonight.”