Dodgers 1 Angels 8: Death By Papercuts

The Dodgers got BABIPed to death in the fifth inning. Rest in peace, Dodgers.

If you would have told me that Mike Bolsinger, in his first start off the DL would allow three runs in roughly five innings, I would have been fine with it. I probably would have assumed three Mike Trout solo home runs, but it was roughly what I was expecting.

Bolsinger didn’t complete five innings, as he was pulled with one out in the fifth. He had only given up a run to this point, which did come on a Trout solo homer. The Dodgers had tied the game up on a Joc Pederson RBI single, but some less-than stellar baserunning and an unlucky ground rule double kept the Dodgers to a single run. Nick Tropeano had the longest outing of his career tonight (seven innings) and went longer than six for the first time all season. The Dodgers were aggressive, but not very successful in doing so, giving Tropeano a low pitch count throughout the game.

The fifth inning did the Dodgers in. It started with a clean Yunel Escobal single. Bolsinger then walked Trout and was pulled for Louis Coleman. Coleman threw the exact same pitch to Albert Pujols four times, and it was four sliders out of the zone to load the bases. All of that was 100 percent the Dodgers fault, and I can live with that.

C.J. Cron hit a grounder in between short and third. Corey Seager made a tough stop in the hole, but Justin Turner had also gone after the ball, and Seager’s only play was at third. Without Turner there, he had to eat it, and everyone was safe. Johnny Giavotella then hit a nubber in between the mound and first, and it had enough english on it that Howie Kendrick couldn’t field it cleanly. Another run, everyone safe again. Rafael Ortega then hit a blooper to left, and Trayce Thompson got a real late jump on it and couldn’t make the diving catch. This one drove in two. Carlos Perez  followed that up with a sac fly to right on the most well-hit ball off Coleman, and it went from a 1-1 tie to a 6-1 deficit really quickly.

Bolsinger wasn’t super sharp, but that was to be expected in his first major league start back off the DL. Louis Coleman allowed a four-pitch walk, but in reality got two grounders and a weakly hit fly ball, it all just seemed to find a hole. The Angels play-by-play guys said my title, that the Dodgers suffered “death by papercuts”, and that’s true. That’s a thing that happens in baseball sometimes. The sharply hit balls get caught, a sharply hit ball winds up as a ground rule double and keeps a Dodger runner at third instead of scoring easily. That’s baseball. I have no stats to back this up, but this season it just seems like the Dodgers have been on the wrong end of clustered weak hits more often than not. Hopefully, the Baseball Gods make up for it later in the season.

The Angels added on in the later innings, but after the fifth it really felt like the game was over. The blame will probably be thrown on the bullpen as always, but the Dodgers generally won’t win many games where they score one run. They had their chances on offense, but couldn’t seem to get the key hit (or when they got the key hit, they still couldn’t score on it).  Yasiel Puig drawing a walk was probably the most exciting thing that happened in the last four innings. Such is life.

To recap, offense bad, defense bad, pitching bad, luck bad. Bad Wednesday.

The Dodgers look to split the Freeway Series tomorrow with Ross Stripling scheduled to throw against Jhoulys Chacin.