Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman thought it was the truth when he said it.
After the Dodgers won the World Series last year, riding extreme highs and lows in an all-time nail-biter of a seven-game set, he remembers telling his wife, Robin, that a second consecutive championship, after a roller coaster of a season, should at least alleviate some of his stress during games the following April and May.
“I should have already gotten it before, but now I really get it,” he told The Times on Tuesday, recounting his declaration from last fall. “So now I’m going to be able to have some perspective.”
Robin didn’t believe him.
“She was right,” Friedman said before the Dodgers’ 6-2 loss to the Giants on Tuesday.
A penchant for worrying often serves those in Friedman’s position well. Anticipating worst-case scenarios is the first step to protecting against them. The quality, however, doesn’t make for a pleasant viewing experience, especially during lulls in the season like the one the Dodgers are currently battling through.
Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto throws during the second inning against the Giants at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday.
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
The loss Tuesday extended their skid to four games, keeping the Dodgers (24-18) pinned behind the Padres (24-17) in the division standings.
“What we know for a fact is every guy is going to have ups and downs,” Friedman said. “And this is some of the randomness of baseball. Sometimes those happen spread out, which allows your offense to thrive, and sometimes they happen concurrently, and that’s when you go into some real offensive lulls. And I feel like that’s more random than anything.”
He knows all those things. And he knows there’s still a long season ahead. But that doesn’t mean he’s able to manage his stress.
The Dodgers have lost each of their last four games by four runs or more, tied for their longest-such streak in a single season in the modern era (since 1901), according to MLB.com research. It hasn’t happened to the franchise since 1936, when the team was in Brooklyn.
Tuesday’s loss ensured that the Dodgers cannot win the four-game series at Dodger Stadium this week, making a split the best possible outcome for the home team. They’ve beaten the Giants just once this season after playing five games against their division rival.
“I think that we bring out the best in every team,” manager Dave Roberts said. “… They haven’t had a good season thus far, but against us you can see the emotion that they’re playing with. We have to find a way to match that intensity. We do.”
They did to begin Tuesday’s game, but it quickly fell apart.
The Dodgers struck first, loading the bases in the first inning with one out. Then Will Smith drove a deep fly ball the other way, towards the right-field corner. It fell inches shy of a multi-run hit.
Giants right fielder Jung Hoo Lee made the over-the-shoulder catch just before running into the wall. Smith’s sacrifice fly brought in one run, the only one they’d squeeze out in the first.
“That was a really game-changing play,” Roberts said. “In total, you know, when you don’t get a whole lot of opportunities and you don’t cash in on the couple that you do get, you don’t score a lot of runs.”
Two innings later, the Giants tied the score. Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who was charged with five runs in 6 ⅓ innings Tuesday, missed down the middle with a cutter to Eric Haase. And Haase sent it into the left-field stands.
Tie game — although, not for long.
Dodgers two-way star Shohei Ohtani led off the bottom half of the third inning. And he snapped an 11-game (not counting the days he pitched but didn’t hit) homer-less streak to put the Dodgers up again.
The opposite-field shot was his first homer in 53 plate appearances. When he got back to the dugout, he jokingly motioned for the ball.
Roberts told Ohtani before the game that he’d get the next two days off from hitting — Wednesday, when he’ll pitch, and Thursday. Even a potential turning-point offensive performance Tuesday didn’t change Roberts’ mind.
“I don’t like the bait and switch,” Roberts said. “Sometimes that might’ve been something where, you know you get a couple days off of hitting, and it might have freed him up [Tuesday]. You just never know. To go back on a pact or decision that we came upon or I came upon, I don’t like that.”
Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman rounds second base during the eighth inning against the Giants at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday.
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
The back-and-forth continued Tuesday night. In the fifth inning, Yamamoto surrendered back-to-back homers to Harrison Bader and Haase, erasing the Dodgers’ lead.
Yamamoto hadn’t given up multiple home runs in a game all season. And the three he yielded Tuesday set his MLB career high.
Yamamoto bounced back with a clean sixth inning, but in the seventh, he gave up consecutive base hits before recording the first out of the inning on a sharp line drive to second. Right-handed reliever Blake Treinen replaced Yamamoto with runners on the corners.
To add to the Giants’ lead, pinch hitter Drew Gilbert laid down a well-placed bunt up the first-base line. Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman charged hard and tried to make a bare-handed play, but he didn’t quite come up with it as the Giants’ Heliot Ramos raced across the plate.
Then Jung Hoo Lee supplied even more insurance, dropping a two-run double into the right-field gap.
The Dodgers tried to mount a comeback in the eighth inning. Freeman drew a one-out walk, and Kyle Tucker moved him to third with a line-drive double to right field. Then Smith walked to load the bases.
With the tying run at the plate, the Dodgers stranded all three runners, in what’s becoming a pattern during this team’s slump. Max Muncy struck out, and Andy Pages lined out to left field to end the inning.
“It’s just on us, just trying to be a little better and trying to get those runs in when we can,” said Tucker, who went one for two with a walk and hit by pitch. “Because it’s not easy with the pitching that you face in this league. So whenever you have opportunities like that, you need to capitalize on it.”