LOS ANGELES — And on the seventh day, the Dodgers wrested … victory from the jaws of a four-game sweep.
Down 4-2 in the eighth inning and down to their last strike twice in the ninth inning, the Dodgers rallied to pull out a 5-4 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies on Gavin Lux’s redeeming two-run double, snapping a four-game losing streak that included the first three games of this series.
It was the third time in the series the Dodgers came back from multiple runs down in the eighth inning or later – but the first rally to produce a victory. Phillies relievers surrendered 11 runs over 13 2/3 innings during the series.
“It’s huge,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I don’t want to say it’s the biggest win of the year. It’s a small sample. But right now this is a big one. To lose five in a row and potentially six or whatever it was, to go into this Arizona series – guys are feeling pretty good right now.
“We’ve just got to get back to playing our type of baseball – not giving outs away, not giving away bases, not walking guys and taking an extra base, taking good at-bats. When we do that, we’re as good as anyone. But when you start giving away outs and things like that, then we can see what can happen.”
This past week was a seven-day study in what that can look like.
The Dodgers’ pitching staff surrendered 44 runs in the seven games, with the damage divided between starting pitchers (26) and the bullpen (18). The state of Pennsylvania (the Pirates and Phillies) collected 34 extra-base hits off Dodgers pitching this week – 17 doubles, four triples and 13 home runs.
The defense committed eight errors leading directly to eight unearned runs (and indirectly to other costly issues like driving up pitch counts at a time when their pitching is stretched thin from here to Double-A Tulsa).
Rookie starter Michael Grove was not complicit. He was collateral damage.
Called up from Double-A Tulsa to make his major-league debut Sunday, the 25-year-old right-hander acquitted himself well for the most part.
He retired the side in order in his first inning, gave up a hit and walked a batter with two outs in the second but was about to get out of that situation undamaged when he got Phillies shortstop Bryson Stott to bounce a soft grounder to the right side.
Lux let the routine grounder roll under his glove and into right field. Unsettled by the misplay, Grove let things snowball. He gave up three consecutive hits – a ground-rule double by Garrett Stubbs, a two-run single by Rhys Hoskins and another single by Alec Bohm – and walked a batter to load the bases before escaping.
The Phillies sent 10 batters to the plate in the inning, five of them after Lux’s error. Four runs scored but Grove’s career ERA stayed at 0.00 – all were unearned.
“Obviously, he knows that I feel bad about the error,” Lux said. “In that situation, I’ve got to make that play. And he knows that. I know that. Everybody knows that. It’s no secret.
“Those runs are on me. They’re not on him. They’re on me.”
Grove pitched into the fourth inning without giving up another hit but the 35-pitch second inning (16 after Lux’s error) represented half of the 70 pitches Dodgers manager Dave Roberts let him throw.
The Phillies let that four-run lead bask in the sun the rest of the afternoon – until it spoiled.
Their starter Aaron Nola gave up a solo home run to Mookie Betts in the third and an RBI single to Max Muncy in the fourth. But Nola got a double play on a diving play by third baseman Johan Camargo to cut off the rest of the Dodgers’ threat in the fourth and the Dodgers didn’t get another runner past second base until the Phillies’ wobbly bullpen took center stage.
Jeurys Familia walked Lux to start the eighth. Betts doubled down the third-base line to drive in Lux and make it a one-run game. After a walk of Freddie Freeman, though, Trea Turner bounced into a double play and Will Smith hit a hard ground ball up the middle — swallowed up by the Phillies’ shifted defense.
Phillies closer Corey Knebel retired the first two batters in the ninth but Cody Bellinger tripled into the right-field corner and Chris Taylor worked a full-count walk.
“I think he threw me six balls and I only swung at two of them,” Taylor joked. “I guess it’s better than swinging at three balls.”
That brought up Lux with a chance to redeem himself after his second costly error of the series. Earlier in the game, Lux had gotten some hitting advice from Justin Turner who noticed something about Lux’s setup.
“JT actually spotted something really good,” Lux said. “When I was going good, I was 60-40 in my setup — backloaded. He spotted it actually. And he was like, ‘Hey, you’re a little more 50-50. You’re shifting. Your head is kind of all over the place.’”
Having made the adjustment, Lux stroked a 2-and-1 curveball from Knebel that was actually below the strike zone into right field. Running on the pitch, Taylor scored from firs — Lux’s first walkoff RBI in the majors and the first he could remember as a pro.
“Obviously we were scuffling there,” Taylor said of the week. “They (the Phillies) played a really good series. I think we ran into a hot team. Obviously they were swinging the bats really well. That was a huge win for us to be able to get that last one.”
