DETROIT — The Dodgers hit the road on Monday. They haven’t hit much else since then.
Another sluggish offensive performance left the Dodgers’ bullpen living on the edge with no margin for error. Jack Dreyer made one in the ninth inning, giving up a leadoff double to Javier Baez that led to the deciding run as the Detroit Tigers handed the Dodgers their second walk-off defeat this week 2-1 on Saturday afternoon.
The Dodgers have played five consecutive one-run games on this trip, losing four of them. It’s not hard to pinpoint the reason – they have managed to score just three runs in their past three games and 11 in the first five games of this road trip.
After stranding 33 runners on base over the previous three games, the Dodgers cut out the middle man early Saturday. They had just two baserunners through the first five innings against Tigers starter Keider Montero – a two-out walk of Kyle Tucker in the second inning and a bloop single, also with two outs, by Shohei Ohtani in the third.
Dodgers starter Blake Snell was less stingy about allowing baserunners but nearly as effective in preventing runs.
The Tigers got to him just once. Javier Baez drew a leadoff walk to start the third inning. Max Clark dropped a bunt down but Max Muncy booted it, putting two runners on with no outs.
Gleyber Torres drove in one run with a double that hopped off the back wall in center field. It could have been a two-run double but the hit was ruled a ground-rule double.
Snell worked his way out of the inning from there, leaving the bases loaded when he struck out Dillon Dingler and Eduardo Valencia.
The Dodgers marshalled all of their forces to get a second hit and push across their own run in the sixth inning. Alek Thomas led off with a double and moved to second when Shohei Ohtani grounded out. Freddie Freeman dropped an RBI single into right field to drive in Thomas.
A single by Mookie Betts and a walk of Muncy loaded the bases with one out, handing the Dodgers another excellent opportunity – to strand runners. They did when Tommy Edman bounced into an inning-ending double play.
Snell packed 99 pitches into just five innings, sending Dodgers manager Dave Roberts to the bullpen early Saturday. He got scoreless innings from Seth Halvorsen, Alex Vesia and Edgardo Henriquez.
But the Tigers put the winning run in scoring position against Dreyer to start the ninth. After a sacrifice bunt moved Baez to third, the Dodgers intentionally walked Torres and Hao-Yu Lee drew another walk to load the bases. Kevin McGonigle drove in the winning run with a drive to the wall in center field.