Justin Wrobleski has a bad night as Dodgers fall to the Mariners
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Dominic Canzone’s go-ahead home run in the eighth spoiled a Tuesday night of leaderboard climbing for Max Muncy and Shohei Ohtani as the Mariners beat the Dodgers 7-6 in the first game at Dodger Stadium since before the All-Star break on July 12.
With one out, Julio Rodríguez on first and the score tied at five, Canzone got all of Alex Vesia’s 82-mph slider, sending it 414 feet to center to help lift Seattle to its first win over the Dodgers in five years and first in Los Angeles since June 28, 2009.
“It’s a pitch that’s had different results,” Vesia said. “Obviously it’s not the best pitch. I would have liked to have it more outside or more down. Kind of just flush it and on to the next one. Clearly need to be better in that situation. I felt like my stuff was good after that.”
Added manager Dave Roberts: “Alex made a really bad pitch, [an] 0-1 slider that was middle-middle, and they were hitting the ball out of the ballpark. So, that’s kind of the tale of the run prevention tonight.”
Andrew Friedman repeatedly has said he would like this era to be remembered as “the golden age of Dodger baseball,” and nothing says legacy like doing something that never has been done.
The Dodgers (67-40), with some much-needed help from dubious Mariners fielding, did have Ohtani on third and Muncy on second as the tying and winning runs in the ninth. But Seattle reliever Andrés Muñoz survived, putting an end to the thrilling opener of this three-game series.
Seattle won the slugfest with 10 hits and five home runs to the home team’s 13 hits and two homers.
Canzone led the Mariners with two homers — his first, a solo shot, went 433 feet to center in the sixth — while Rodríguez, Cal Raleigh and Rob Refsnyder all hit one apiece.
Mariners right-handed starter Luis Castillo struggled and surrendered five runs, 11 hits and a pair of homers through five innings. But Dodgers left-hander Justin Wrobleski, coming off six innings of one-run ball in last Tuesday’s win in Philadelphia, wasn’t his best either. He surrendered five runs and four homers through six innings.
“They obviously had a good approach against me,” Wrobleski said. “We didn’t do the greatest job of kind of adjusting to their game plan. And yeah, they got me. That’s part of the game. … It’s definitely not a thing that I want to have happen again, but again, it’s a learning experience.”
“Going back and looking at it, I still threw the ball pretty well,” Wrobleski added. “I mean, I know that sounds crazy considering the number and the line … but at the end of the day … I didn’t do a great job of adjusting.”
Muncy and Ohtani, though, still had nights to remember.
Ohtani kick-started the scoring with his 10th leadoff homer of the season, which was also the 34th of his nine-year MLB career and 28th with the Dodgers. The 432-footer to center tied the two-way superstar with Davey Lopes for the second-most leadoff homers in franchise history. Mookie Betts is first on the list with 32.
Dusty Baker is eighth on baseball’s all-time managerial wins list with 2,183 as the only Black manager in baseball history with 2,000 victories. Does Cooperstown beckon next year?
“Tonight, he looked like himself,” Roberts said of Ohtani, who remains off the mound. “I do think that the road trip was exhausting for everyone. I do think that with the day off, he came in fresh and looked more like himself.”
Muncy, meanwhile, launched a home run 430 feet to right in the fifth to tie Eric Karros for the most homers in Dodger Stadium history with 130. Muncy, who has spent the past nine years with L.A. after spending his first two seasons in Oakland, could be standing alone by the end of the Dodgers’ six-game homestand.
With the trade deadline a couple of weeks away, let’s take a look at the players who are probably available.
