LOS ANGELES — Even when their stars seemed to finally align, the evening still managed to descend into darkness for the Dodgers.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto opened with five perfect innings and Freddie Freeman felt the freedom of strolling around the bases untethered with his first home run since July 4. Mookie Betts joined the act with his own home run.
And yet the St. Louis Cardinals still rallied from a pair of three-run deficits for an 8-6 victory in 10 innings, while breaking through against Yamamoto to hand the Dodgers their sixth loss in the past eight games. The Dodgers’ ace had his worst start in eight outings since the All-Star break, and the Cardinals took advantage of more missed opportunities by the Dodgers’ hitters to get back in the game.
Yamamoto still appears to be gathering momentum for a playoff push with a 2.32 ERA since July 19. But in seven innings he allowed four runs on five hits, with all of the damage coming during his final two innings of work.
The Dodgers (82-57) appeared to have a chance for a rare laugher when Shohei Ohtani walked to lead off the game against Cardinals rookie left-hander Brycen Mautz, Tommy Edman was hit by a pitch and Freeman hit a one-out home run to left-center field.
Freeman’s 16th of the season, for a 3-0 lead, ended his career-long 47-game streak without a home run. Still, clutch hits continued to elude the Dodgers, who went 1 for 18 with runners in scoring position and left 13 on base.
Yamamoto retired all 15 batters he faced until the Cardinals’ Jose Fermin had a single to lead off the sixth. Thomas Saggese followed two batters later with a two-run home run to center to bring the Cardinals within a run.
Saggese’s home run came one night after he hit a pair of long balls in the series opener. He has just four home runs on the season and seven in parts of three seasons for St. Louis (70-70).
Betts got the runs back in the bottom of the sixth with a two-run homer of his own.
Yamamoto returned for the seventh inning, but he gave up a two-run homer to rookie Leo Bernal, who had just made his major league debut Tuesday with a two-run single.
The Cardinals tied it at 5-5 in the eighth against Tanner Scott when Joshua Baez led off with a double past third baseman Max Muncy and into left field, advanced to third on a ground ball from Ivan Herrera and scored on a fly ball from Alec Burleson.
Against Brock Stewart (0-2) in the 10th, Sageese delivered again with a run-scoring ground ball to bring home automatic runner Fermin. Joshua Baez followed with a two-run double. St. Louis scored all eight of its runs over the final five innings.
More to come on this story.