Tanner Scott finally lost Dodgers' most optimistic fans with absolute Mets meltdown

New York Mets v Los Angeles Dodgers
New York Mets v Los Angeles Dodgers | Harry How/GettyImages

Tanner Scott was supposed to let the Dodgers to breathe a sigh of relief whenever he entered a game in late innings with a close or tied score. Lately, he's making Dodgers fans want to turn off their TVs and call it a day whenever we see him jogging out of the bullpen.

We would've been better off doing the latter on Monday night. With a tie game against the Mets going into the 10th, Scott came out and immediately gave up a double to Francisco Alvarez, who hasn't been batting well at all over his last 15 games, which scored the ghost runner and gave the Mets the lead. And then he gave up an RBI single to Francisco Lindor, the next man up, allowing New York to extend their lead to 4-2.

Scott got his first out with a when Brandon Nimmo went down looking, but Lindor stole second and a Juan Soto groundout moved him to third. Pete Alonso walked, putting runners on the corners with two outs and lending even more credence to the "Tanner Scott is washed" argument.

He managed to get out of the inning with a groundout from Mark Vientos, but the Dodgers couldn't make the up the difference in the bottom of the 10th.

Dodgers' $72 million closer Tanner Scott completely blew another opportunity in extra innings vs. Mets

Quite literally every other Tanner Scott appearance since May 20 has resulted in some kind of disaster, sandwiching squeaky clean, scoreless outings. Before Monday's game, all he had to do was get the last out of the top of the eighth against the Yankees on Friday, which he did easily enough. It wasn't a lot to ask for, sure, but at least he could do the bare minimum.

Before that, he blew his fourth save of the season against the Guardians, when he gave up four runs against the Guardians. First came a game-tying two-run single, then he left two runners on for Angel Martínez to knock home on a three-run homer given up by Alex Vesia.

Scott is the third highest-earning reliever in baseball this year, but he's looked bad ever since he put on a Dodgers uniform. His command seems to be the issue, which is an ostensibly fixable one, but the Dodgers can't even really afford to demote him from the closer role right now, when all of their other potential candidates are on the IL (though Michael Kopech seems close to a return).

Mark Prior and the Dodgers' pitching coaches need to figure out why Scott's fastball is getting slugged this year, and they need to do it fast.