LOS ANGELES — Maybe a good fight will wake up the Dodgers. Old-school baseball, you know.

Right now, in the vacuum of (a) waiting for their stars to recover and (b) trying to fix certain starting pitchers, anything would work. Manager Dave Roberts was ejected from Wednesday night’s 9-4 loss to Philadelphia after a controversial and unexamineable play (we’ll explain), and it didn’t fire up the guys, it just frustrated them. Afterward, relief pitchers Michael Grove and Matt Strahm hit batters and the two sides snarled at each other, but it didn’t go any further.

It wasn’t a good night overall. But it wasn’t a good 5½ weeks either.

“This guy (rookie pitcher Tyler Phillips) was on the ropes and he stayed in the game longer than he should have and we left the door open,” Roberts said. “They took advantage of that and we lost a series to a good team. And it’s really frustrating. Yeah, it’s a frustrating thing.”

This “Waiting for Mookie” business is getting boring. The Dodgers are 22-20 since No. 1 MVP candidate Mookie Betts suffered a broken hand when he was hit by a pitch on June 16. Worse, they are 15-18 since June 28, when the schedule got tougher with nine games against the Colorado Rockies, Angels and Chicago White Sox.

(And if you have to ask why Betts is the No. 1 MVP candidate and Shohei Ohtani isn’t, that record when Mookie wasn’t on the roster pretty much emphasizes the “valuable” part, doesn’t it?)

That cut the Dodgers’ lead over the Arizona Diamondbacks and Padres in the National League West to three games Wednesday night. The Phillies were in a slump in their own series (3-12) before winning in Seattle on Sunday and then taking two of three at The Ravine.

If you are a rival in someone else’s quest to find the truth, could that be a sign of trouble?

Right now, the team that has won 10 of the last 11 National League West titles shouldn’t be considered the favorite to win this one, with the Diamondbacks and Padres both on a rampage. Dodgers fans may never have imagined themselves saying, “Thank goodness for extra wild cards.” But look on the bright side: Maybe their team will avoid the first-round bye that stumbled them the last two Octobers.

There are 47 games left to change direction and reverse the script, but that will be the toughest part of the schedule. Thirty of the Dodgers’ next 35 games will be against teams that currently hold the division lead, the wild card spot, or are five games out of the playoff race. Ten of those will be against division leaders Milwaukee, Baltimore and Cleveland, and eight will be against current wild card teams Arizona and Atlanta.

That series begins with three games against Pittsburgh this weekend, and the Dodgers are almost certain to see Pirates rookie star Paul Skenes in one of those games, but as of Wednesday night, the Pirates’ pitching plans for the series were “uncertain.”

It’s also the Dodgers’ “Homecoming Weekend,” which is a useful distraction in times like these. When the present is a struggle, calm the fans by bringing up reminders of better times.

In Wednesday night’s game, third base umpire Hunter Wendelstedt’s defensive interference call in the sixth inning had a significant impact on the outcome.

With a 4-2 lead, Dodger relief player Alex Vesia gave up an opening double to Alec Bohm. Brandon Marsh then struck out. Third baseman Kiké Hernandez took the ball and fired to shortstop Miguel Rojas, who closed out the third; Rojas tagged Bohm in time, but Wendelstedt ruled that Rojas was blocking Bohm’s path to the bag and therefore the runner was safe.

Roberts argued that Bohm had a lane to the bag — between Rojas’ legs — but that’s not a reviewable call. Nor is it explicable, because not only was Roberts sent off — the 12th of his career and his first of the year — but he later said he couldn’t get Wendelstedt to explain why he made the call.

“When I look back at it, he missed the call,” Roberts said later, his arms crossed and his body language tense. “This may be the first time I’ve ever said that. You know, it was a huge missed call.

“They have a tough job. (But) it changed the game. When you’re playing baseball and you’re a moving infielder, trying to catch a ball that’s coming at you and there’s a runner coming up, you still have to secure the baseball, you have to know that the runner is still coming toward third base, and then you have to put a tag on it. It’s a game of tag.

“And when I saw the replay, Miggy took the baseball from about a foot in front of the bag, two feet in front of it, and it gave Bohm a lane because his legs were spread wide and he was making a glove tag. … The spirit of the rule was to discourage infielders from blocking the bag, not to give a runner a lane or room toward the bag and potentially hurt the runner.

“And this play, again, (Rojas) is in motion. He gets the ball. His legs are wide open so the lane is between his legs and he makes a tag. And so with that — again, quick. It has to be reviewable. This play changed the complexion of the game and he got it wrong.”

Instead of a runner on first and one out, there was no first and third and no out. Joe Kelly replaced Vesia, caught JT Realmuto on a run-scoring infield grounder, walked Nick Castellanos, got Bryson Stott on the second out, walked Johan Rojas, slugged home the tying run and then hit the second of Kyle Schwarber’s three home runs, a 426-foot, 109.7-mph shot into the right-field pavilion on a changeup to give the Phillies an 8-4 lead.

“I think he (Wendelstedt) predetermined (the play) and he was looking for some attention… It bothers me that a guy like him or any referee would try to predetermine a decision and try to come to a conclusion from it, instead of watching the game and letting it happen,” said Rojas afterwards.

Hunter, however, isn’t the first Wendelstedt to make a controversial decision at this stadium. His father, Harry, made the famous (or infamous, if you’re from the Bay Area) decision to not attempt to get out of the way of San Francisco Giants forward Dick Dietz when he faced a pitch from Don Drysdale on May 31, 1968, preserving Drysdale’s then-record 58-hit shutout streak.

Look, in baseball, things balance out. Sometimes it just takes a few decades.

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Original Release Date: August 8, 2024 12:18 am