Tyler Glasnow runs into trouble early as Dodgers lose for fourth time in five games
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The Dodgers had their best pitcher on the mound in Tyler Glasnow, the 6-foot-8 right-hander who was acquired from the Tampa Bay Rays in December and signed to a five-year, $136.5-million extension to be the team’s ace.
They had their most dangerous hitter at the plate for the game’s most critical moment in Shohei Ohtani, the two-time American League most valuable player who was signed to a 10-year, $700-million deal in December to power what was expected to be one of baseball’s most lethal lineups.
Neither delivered in a 6-4 loss to the Washington Nationals in front of 42,677 at Dodger Stadium on Monday night, the team’s fourth loss in five games.
Glasnow, who entered with a 3-0 record and 2.25 ERA, gave up six earned runs and eight hits, including two homers, in five innings, striking out five and walking two, suffering his first loss as a Dodger on a night he was battling flu-like symptoms.
The Dodgers have one of the strongest rosters in baseball, but a top-heavy lineup and a shaky bullpen could doom their World Series title hopes.
“He’s not going to say it, but he was under the weather,” manager Dave Roberts said. “As far as the performance, it just wasn’t there. The fastball command wasn’t there. The breaking ball — curveball, specifically — he didn’t have the feel for it. And the slider was sort of just rolling. It just didn’t have the teeth to it.”
Ohtani had a chance to tie the score in the bottom of the seventh when, with the Dodgers trailing 6-3, he stepped to the plate against Nationals right-hander Hunter Harvey with two on after James Outman’s leadoff single to left field and Mookie Betts’ two-out single.
Ohtani hit the ball on the nose, sending a 98-mph line drive to center field but well within the reach of Jacob Young, who ran toward the gap in left-center for an inning-ending catch.
“I mean, it’s not only me,” right fielder Teoscar Hernández said when asked if there was a feeling in the dugout that something special was about to happen. “Everybody is hoping he’d get into one in that situation where we’re losing by three runs so we can tie the game. He made good contact, but unfortunately, it was right at the center fielder.”
The left-handed-hitting Ohtani is batting .338 with a 1.033 on-base-plus-slugging percentage, four homers, 10 doubles and 10 RBIs but has only one hit in 16 at-bats with runners in scoring position (.063).
Glasnow overpowered the Minnesota Twins with his fastball in his previous start on April 9, a seven-inning, no-run, three-hit, 14-strikeout effort in which he induced 12 swinging strikes and 12 called strikes among his 45 four-seamers.
His 96.2-mph average velocity Monday night was virtually identical to his 96.3-mph season average, but he was hardly dominant with the pitch, inducing three swinging strikes and 12 called strikes among his 47 fastballs.
“It was just not a lot of execution,” Glasnow said. “I don’t think any of the pitches were really working. I wasn’t hitting my spots and was falling behind early. If I’m kind of throwing [just] one pitch for a strike, I think you’re able to sit on something and stay on the heater, and I think it’s just easier to sell out for one pitch.”
Washington leadoff man CJ Abrams gave a hint of the kind of night it would be for Glasnow when he slammed the first pitch of the game, a 95.5-mph fastball, to right-center for a double. Abrams took third on a groundout and scored on a wild pitch.
The Dodgers scored single runs in the first (singles by Ohtani and Freddie Freeman, Will Smith sacrifice fly) and second (Max Muncy double, Chris Taylor sacrifice fly) innings off Nationals left-hander Mitchell Parker, who was making his major league debut, to take a 2-1 lead.
But Abrams led off the third with a towering home run to right-center, his fourth of the season, and Jesse Winker doubled to left and scored on Joey Gallo’s RBI double to right for a 3-2 Washington lead.
Glasnow gave up a one-out single to Winker and a two-out walk to Gallo in the fifth. He was one pitch away from escaping the jam when he left a full-count slider up and over the plate to Luis Garcia Jr., who drove a three-run home run — his first of the season — to left field for a 6-2 Nationals lead.
“It was just a bad sider, I left it up,” Glasnow said of the home run pitch. “I think just being late and not being able to execute tonight, it was just a super hittable pitch.”
Ohtani reached on catcher’s inference to lead off the sixth, stole second, took third on a wild pitch and scored on Smith’s groundout to trim Washington’s lead to 6-3. Hernández doubled with two outs in the eighth and scored on Muncy’s RBI single to right to make it 6-4.
Players from both teams gathered around the Jackie Robinson statue in the center-field plaza Monday afternoon to mark the 77th anniversary of the Hall of Fame Dodgers infielder breaking baseball’s color barrier in 1947.
Roberts, Nationals manager Dave Martinez, former Dodgers slugger Reggie Smith and renowned sports sociologist and civil rights activist Harry Edwards gave speeches.
“As we talk about with the Dodgers, doing something that’s bigger than ourselves, living a life that’s more important than ourselves, there’s no person that exemplified that better than Jackie Robinson,” Roberts said.
“He had a big burden in his life to be a professional baseball player, but to take on all this negativity, this hate towards him, his wife, his kids, and to still persevere … was amazing.”
Martinez said Robinson “exemplifies what it means to have strength, courage and passion. What he endured was incredible. He had the dignity to do what he did when everybody was on his back. That’s tough to do. As you guys all know, this game is hard enough. What he did back in those days, I couldn’t imagine being in that situation.”
Pitching plans
Right-hander Kyle Hurt, who has been pitching in two-inning stints for triple-A Oklahoma City, joined the Dodgers on Monday and was expected to be activated this week, most likely to start a bullpen game Tuesday night or Wednesday, Roberts said.
Top pitching prospect Landon Knack is also expected to be called up this week, according to a person with knowledge of the situation who is unauthorized to speak publicly, to either start or pitch in a bulk relief role.
Dodgers pitchers issue 14 walks — the most walks in a single game by the team since 1962 — in a 6-3 loss to the San Diego Padres.
If all goes well for Walker Buehler in Thursday’s rehabilitation start — meaning the right-hander pitches five innings or so and throws 80-90 pitches, “there’s a real conversation on if he would join us or not [next week],” Roberts said. Buehler is recovering from a second Tommy John surgery and hasn’t pitched since June 2022.
Right-hander Ricky Vanasco, who has pitched in seven minor league seasons without appearing in a big-league game, was recalled and made his big-league debut Monday night, retiring the side in order in the eighth and ninth innings.
Left-hander Nick Ramirez also threw hitless sixth and seventh innings for the Dodgers. Right-hander J.P. Feyereisen was optioned back to triple-A.
Rehab report
Jason Heyward is experiencing some residual soreness from the lower-back tightness that sent him to the injured list on April 3, and Roberts said the veteran right fielder would need to go on a minor league rehab assignment “given the time off that he’s had and is going to have,” Roberts said.
“Jason is going to get back to doing some baseball activity. He’s trending in the right direction as far as feeling better. … I still believe it’s going to be shorter-term from here, but I don’t know what the timeline is.”
An MRI test on Emmet Sheehan’s injured forearm revealed no structural damage, and the right-hander, who has been shut down from throwing twice since the start of spring training, said he expected to begin throwing again “soon,” perhaps in the next week or two. But Roberts said Sheehan was still “a ways away” from a possible return.
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