LOS ANGELES — Apparently after going on a scoring binge Tuesday, the Dodgers’ offense had to sleep it off.
They scored a season-high 15 runs Tuesday night but managed just a solo home run by Andy Pages on Thursday and lost, 3-1, to the Texas Rangers, having totaled just three runs in the two games since their series-opening explosion.
The highlight of Tuesday’s romp was a seven-run sixth inning that featured four home runs. In 20 innings since then, however, the Dodgers were held to four runs and 12 hits by Rangers pitching.
Michael Lorenzen was a mystery for six scoreless innings Thursday. The Rangers starter struck out just two in seven innings and allowed plenty of hard contact. The Dodgers hit 10 balls with exit velocities over 95 mph (Statcast’s standard for a ‘hard-hit’ ball) in the first six innings but only two produced hits – singles by Freddie Freeman in the first inning and Andy Pages in the fourth.
Pages produced the only run off Lorenzen (Fullerton High, Cal State Fullerton) when he lined a 1-and-0 sweeper into the seats down the left field line for a solo home run in the seventh inning. He was the first Dodger to touch second base in the game.
The Rangers did more damage with soft contact.
They scored twice in the first inning with three hits off of opener Michael Grove. One run scored on a ground out, the other on a soft two-out single (67.3 mph off the bat) sliced gently into right field by Wyatt Langford.
Two innings later, two walks by reliever Ryan Yarbrough set Langford up with another two-out opportunity and he went with the same method, dropping an even softer single (58.8 mph) just over the reach of Freeman for another RBI single.
The rest of the relief relay in Thursday’s “bullpen game” kept the Rangers off the board.
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The Dodgers put the tying runs on base with no outs in the eighth inning after Cavan Biggio led off with a walk and went to third on Austin Barnes’ single to right. That brought up the top of the order against veteran reliever David Robertson.
Robertson handled the eighth inning in Wednesday’s 3-2 Rangers win and struck out Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani and Freeman in order. He was the first pitcher this season to strike out that trio in succession.
He did it again Thursday, stranding both baserunners. Betts and Ohtani went down on three pitches each just as they had Wednesday. Freeman fought Robertson for nine pitches Wednesday. Thursday, he fell behind 0-and-2, took a close pitch for a ball, followed off a cutter then swung and missed at a knuckle curve.
Teoscar Hernandez drew a leadoff walk in the ninth against Rangers reliever Kirby Yates. But Yates then followed Robertson’s lead, striking out Pages, Jason Heyward and Will Smith to close it out.
More to come on this story.