SAN FRANCISCO — If baseball does hate him right now, as Tanner Scott groaned last week, it is finding some diabolical ways to torment him.
A foul tip that should have been strike three was ruled otherwise, setting up a bases-loaded situation in the bottom of the 10th inning. Scott couldn’t escape, giving up a walk-off grand slam to Patrick Bailey as the San Francisco Giants beat the Dodgers, 5-1, on Friday night.
The slam was the third time in his past four appearances that Scott has allowed a walk-off hit in a Dodgers’ loss – two home runs and a two-run single.
“Gave up a bad pitch to a hitter that can hit fastballs. It cost us again,” Scott said in another forlorn post-game post-mortem with the media. “I’m tired of it happening.
“It’s terrible. I’m having the worst year of my life. I gotta be better.”
This time, Scott had a less metaphysical explanation for his torment.
“I don’t know if I’m tipping or what, but they’re on everything. It sucks,” he said.
“It was a fastball above the zone. Maybe I’m tipping. I have no friggin’ clue right now.”
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts faced familiar questions after bringing Scott into the 1-1 game. Given the state of the division race – the San Diego Padres also lost Friday, leaving the Dodgers’ NL West lead at 2½ games – the Dodgers can ill afford to continue putting Scott in position to lose games for them. Using him differently is “something I’ve got to certainly think about,” Roberts acknowledged after Friday’s latest failure.
“He’s going through it right now,” Roberts said. “We’ve just got to continue to try to give him confidence and when the time’s right, run him out there and expect good things to happen and expect it to turn.
“Certainly it doesn’t feel good giving up runs in any capacity. He’s one of our highest-leverage guys, so a lot of times when it doesn’t go well, the game is in the balance. There’s obviously outside noise, but inside the clubhouse, guys believe in him. I believe in him. We’re going to need him. That’s just the facts. We’re going to need him.”
The real victim Friday night was Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
Yamamoto flipped the script on his near no-hitter in Baltimore last week. This time, he gave up a hit and a run in the first inning – then no more. He retired the last 20 batters he faced in order, striking out 10.
Over his past two starts, Yamamoto has allowed two runs on two hits and three walks while striking out 20 in 15⅔ innings – and the Dodgers have lost both games.
Roberts pointed to the Dodgers’ inability to support Yamamoto with more than one run against 42-year-old Justin Verlander – on a solo home run by Michael Conforto in the seventh inning – as part of the problem.
“Those are missed opportunities,” Roberts said of Yamamoto’s past two starts. “When you look at the bullpen, certainly it gets magnified, but when you score one run and you’re in a tight ball game, then there’s just no margin. And things get magnified. And that’s tough on those guys. So when you’re playing these close ballgames when any flare, any mistake costs you, that’s a tough quality of life too. So it’s not just those guys in the ’pen.”
It’s a familiar feeling for Yamamoto. In his 28 starts this season, the Dodgers have managed three runs or fewer in 14. They have scored a total of 57 runs while Yamamoto has been in those games.
The Giants had their first chance to win the game in the bottom of the ninth when they loaded the bases on a throwing error by Mookie Betts, a single by Rafael Devers and an intentional walk. But pinch-runner Grant McCray made the ill-advised decision to tag up on a shallow fly ball to center field and was an easy out on a perfect throw from Andy Pages. That sent the game into extra innings tied, 1-1.
The Dodgers ran themselves out of their Manfred-made scoring opportunity in the top of the 10th when Ben Rortvedt was out tagging up from second and trying to advance on a fly out to right. The Dodgers were 0 for 5 with runners in scoring position and stranded nine runners on base.
The stage was set for another installment of Scott’s recurring nightmare.
Roberts had gone with Jack Dreyer for 1⅓ innings and, for the first time since he returned from a strained forearm, asked Blake Treinen to pitch parts of two innings as well – two batters in the ninth and the first hitter in the 10th. He got Matt Chapman to bounce out, the free runner advancing to third base.
Then Roberts brought Scott in to face the left-handed Jung Hoo Lee.
“I didn’t want to push him any more than that,” Roberts said of Treinen. “I felt that Tanner could handle Lee and then the righties behind him.”
Scott had Lee struck out on a 3-and-2 slider that Lee tipped into Rortvedt’s glove. Rortvedt appeared to catch the ball before it hit the dirt, but third-base umpire Chad Fairchild overruled the call, saying the ball hit the dirt. The Dodgers could not challenge the call and Lee walked on the next pitch.
“I think I caught it, but the way I caught it, I kind of trapped it on the ground,” Rortvedt said. “It was kind of weird. It definitely didn’t hit the ground first, but I think the way I caught it, my mitt kind of pinned the ball against the ground. So I thought I got it pretty flush, but even when I saw the ball, I saw the smallest little scuff mark.
“It definitely didn’t bounce, but the way I caught it, I kind of pinned it, I believe.”
With runners at the corners, the Dodgers intentionally walked Casey Schmitt, loading the bases for Bailey who jumped all over a 96.5 mph fastball from Scott well above the strike zone. Indeed, he couldn’t have hit it any better if he knew what was coming.
“Honestly – man, this is tough,” said Rortvedt, who has been behind the plate for each of the walk-offs against Scott in the past week. “I feel a responsibility for some of these on Tanner, because I’m the one catching and calling it. I mean, you can go back and look at it. No one’s supposed to hit that pitch. Really, no one’s supposed to hit that pitch. That’s a good fastball. Really went down with the pitch before, had his eyes down.
“His at-bat before, he punched on three heaters that weren’t that high. So like I said, I feel responsible for some of these late in the innings, so I feel pretty bad. But we just got to keep showing up, keep competing. Tanner is a great pitcher. He’s gonna get through this, and we all have his back.”