MIAMI – Josue De Paula’s big day was ruined by another bad day from the Dodgers’ bullpen.
De Paula’s first major-league, a three-run home run, put the Dodgers in the lead and they took a shutout into the eighth inning. But sloppy defense opened the door for the Miami Marlins to score six times in the final two innings and walk off with a 6-4 victory on Augustin Ramirez’s two-run, pinch-hit home run off of Brock Stewart on Sunday.
De Paula’s first hit came in his 10th plate appearance since being promoted from Double-A on Friday. De Paula once described his offensive game as being built around “aggressive patience.” He showed the patience by drawing four walks in those first nine times up. Then he got aggressive.
Will Smith doubled to lead off the fourth inning and Kyle Tucker followed with a walk. De Paula came up against the hard-throwing Perez and worked the count to 2-and-2, following off one fastball off the plate before getting a 98-mph version on the inner half near his knees.
De Paula unleashed the swing that has drawn some overheated comparisons to Yordan Alvarez, sending the ball 416 feet down the right-field line. As it flew, he stood at home plate to admire it, turned towards the dugout and thumped his chest before starting his first home run trot as a big-leaguer.
De Paula added a double in his next at-bat.
The three-run rocket gave the lead to Emmet Sheehan who made his second outstanding start since being recalled from Triple-A.
Sheehan retired the first nine Marlins in order, striking out four of them and allowing just one ball to be hit out of the infield.
He ran into his only trouble in the fourth inning when Kyle Stowers and Heriberto Hernandez led off with singles (Hernandez’s a dribbler in front of home plate). Sheehan got the next two batters before walking Xavier Edwards to load the bases. He got Jakob Marsee to fly out and strand all three.
Things got messy in the eighth when Joe Mack singled up the middle with one out. Betts and Miguel Rojas converged on the ground ball with Rojas diving for it and Betts stepping on his hand. Esteury Ruiz then beat out an infield single when Betts double-clutched on his ground ball and threw late to first.
Henriquez struck out Kyle Stowers for the second out but walked Heriberto Hernandez and gave up the two-run single to Otto Lopez.
Tanner Scott got the final out of the eighth but gave up three consecutive singles to start the ninth — an infield single when Freddie Freeman ranged to his right to handle Xavier Edwards’ ground ball but flipped high and late to Scott covering first base then a bunt single.
Javier Sanoja tied the game with a two-run double off Scott then Ramirez won it with his home run off Stewart.