Back in the spring, Dave Roberts didn’t temper expectations when asked about his early impression of Tanner Scott.
“He’s like an assassin,” the Dodgers manager said then of the club’s $72 million offseason signing. “The fear in the batter’s box against him is certainly real.”
Advertisement
Lately, however, the only real killing Scott has done has been to the Dodgers’ chances.
And on Monday night, he and the team suffered through another fatal example, the de facto closer giving up two runs in the top of the 10th inning in a 4-3 loss to the New York Mets.
Instead of overpowering hitters with his upper-90s mph heater, and putting them away with a wicked power slider, Scott fell victim to a familiar pattern in what was his second losing decision of the season (to go along with five blown saves in 15 opportunities):
He missed locations with his fastball. He yielded hard contact without generating enough swing and miss. And that fear Roberts expected back in the spring was present in only one place, emanating through a fan base nervous to watch him pitch.
Advertisement
Read more: Dodgers injuries: Mookie Betts nears return, but Tyler Glasnow’s body ‘not responding’
“Missed locations, especially down in the zone against hitters that I’m supposed to be in different spots,” Scott said about his struggles. “I’m just not hitting my locations, and it’s costing us.”
The cost Monday felt particularly stiff, as Scott’s latest blunder squandered a strong six-inning, two-run start from pitcher Dustin May and some late-game heroics from slugger Shohei Ohtani — who erased the team’s 2-0 deficit with a towering home run in the seventh and tying sacrifice fly in the ninth.
“We do a good job of being resilient,” Roberts said, “of coming back.”
Advertisement
But then Scott was summoned from the bullpen, and everything went sideways.
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani hits a 424-foot home run to right field during the seventh inning Monday. (Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)
Francisco Alvarez got a center-cut fastball to lead off the inning, and hammered an RBI double over Teoscar Hernández’s head in right field. Francisco Lindor singled him home in the next at-bat, swinging aggressively on a 2-and-0 fastball that was down the middle and at his knees.
“Yeah, it’s getting hit a lot,” Scott quipped when asked how he believes his signature fastball has been playing. “It sucks right now. Last year, I relied on it a lot. This year, it’s getting hit and I’m missing locations.”
Indeed, the highest-paid member of the Dodgers’ bullpen has the unit’s highest earned-run average, with Scott’s ballooning to 4.73 after Monday’s defeat. His last two weeks have been particularly brutal, with two losing decisions, three blown saves and 12 runs (10 earned) all coming in his last six innings.
Advertisement
Read more: Plaschke: Missed chance to sweep Yankees leaves Dodgers in a precarious spot
“I think with Tanner, it’s just missed location,” Roberts said. “My eyes, and talking to our pitching guys, [tell me] the stuff’s good. It’s just the command just isn’t where it needs to be right now … Because obviously the intent isn’t to go to the middle part of the plate.”
Since the start of the season, Roberts has been wary to tag Scott as the team’s official closer — and he reiterated Monday that “there is no dedicated” person currently occupying the role.
Then again, Scott has 10 saves on a team where no other reliever has more than two. And given the team’s banged-up relief corps — which is missing Blake Treinen, Michael Kopech and Kirby Yates, and will be without Evan Phillips for the rest of the season — Scott has been bequeathed with the majority of ninth-inning duties.
Advertisement
When asked if that could change moving forward, Roberts’ answer wasn’t entirely clear.
“You have to kind of pick matchups, and who’s throwing the baseball well, and who you believe in, who can kind of manage that situation,” Roberts said. “There’s not one particular closer right now. I think I’ve shown that, using different guys in leverage and finishing games and things like that.”
Dodgers starting pitcher Dustin May delivers against the Mets on Monday. (Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)
For a while Monday, it seemed like the Dodgers (36-24) wouldn’t require such late-game calculations, trailing throughout despite a productive start from May.
After giving up a leadoff home run to Francisco Lindor in the first, the right-hander settled into a groove and retired nine straight, starting with a Juan Soto double-play later in the inning. He rollicked off the mound after striking out Brett Baty to end the fourth with runners on the corners. And though the Mets (38-22) scored again on Brandon Nimmo’s RBI double in the fifth, May got Pete Alonso to fly out with the bases loaded to limit the damage in the face of yet another threat.
Advertisement
May’s six innings carried significant personal meaning, helping him set a career-high in single-season workload by eclipsing the 60-inning threshold for the first time in his injury-plagued six-year career.
“I feel like I’m in an OK spot,” said May, who lowered his ERA to 4.09 while pitching into June for the first time in a season. “There’s definitely some room to grow. But the biggest thing for me at this point, I’m healthy. I feel healthy. There’s no pain … Just gotta keep building off it.”
Though the Dodgers were held scoreless over five innings by his counterpart, veteran right-hander Pete Blackburn (who was making his season debut after battling an injury), Ohtani pushed them back into the game with a mammoth 424-foot home run in the seventh; his MLB-leading 23rd long ball of the season carrying all the way over the Mets’ right-field bullpen.
In the ninth, the Dodgers completed the comeback. Tommy Edman hit a leadoff single and stole second. Hyeseong Kim legged out an infield single that moved Edman to third. Then up came Ohtani, who skied a deep fly ball to left for a tying sacrifice fly.
Advertisement
But after Scott’s extra-inning blunder, another two-run deficit proved too much to overcome.
Freddie Freeman led the bottom of the 10th with a walk (to go along with two hits earlier in the night), and Andy Pages followed with an RBI single that got the score to within one. But then Max Muncy struck out. Will Smith pinch-hit for Michael Conforto at the last second — literally emerging from the dugout with Conforto already digging in at the plate — but flied out to center. And Edman scorched a comebacker straight to reliever José Buttó, concluding a night in which the Dodgers went two for 11 with runners in scoring position and stranded 11 men on base.
“A loss is a loss,” Roberts said. “But when you feel that you’ve done enough to win a game late, and then to not come away with it, it stings a little bit more.”
That pain was none more acute for anyone but Scott. Instead of helping the bullpen survive a rash of big-name injuries, his struggles once again effectively left the Dodgers for dead.
Advertisement
“It’s happened too much,” Scott said. “It’s frustrating, especially when we battle back and it didn’t go my way.”
Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Read the full article here