PHOENIX — Any movie set in a jungle has a scene where the heroes have to pick their way across a rickety rope bridge that threatens to give way at any moment.
The Dodgers are living that each night.
Andy Pages’ two-run home run in the fourth inning gave the Dodgers a lead Wednesday night. Those have been as fragile as the wood slats on that bridge lately. It did not hold – despite 1-2-3 innings from a pair of new relievers, Roki Sasaki and Clayton Kershaw, the Dodgers let a three-run lead slip away.
But they climbed back, beating the Arizona Diamondbacks, 5-4, in 11 innings.
With the win and a San Diego Padres loss earlier in the day, the Dodgers’ lead in the National League West is back up to 2½ games and their magic number to clinch the division is down to one. The Padres do not play Thursday, so the only way the Dodgers can clinch before their weekend series in Seattle is by beating the Diamondbacks on Thursday afternoon.
Dodgers starter Blake Snell did what Dodgers starters have been doing routinely. He scattered five hits and a walk over his six innings Wednesday. The Diamondbacks only got to him for one run in the first inning after Ketel Marte led off with a double.
In Snell’s previous start, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts made a seventh-inning mound visit during which Snell talked him into letting him finish the inning. When Corbin Carroll reached base to start the sixth inning on Wednesday, Snell’s pitch count was approaching 90 and Roberts made another trip to the mound – this time perhaps it was Roberts’ turn to make a plea.
Snell got a double play and froze Blaze Alexander for a called third strike to end the inning – and set up the perilous crossing.
Facing big-league hitters for the first time since May 9, Sasaki made his debut as a reliever in the seventh inning and survived his high-leverage baptism. He retired the side in order, getting James McCann on a ground out then striking out Tim Tawa and Ildemaro Vargas.
Sasaki used only his four-seam fastball and splitter, threw eight strikes in his 13 pitches and averaged 99.2 mph on his seven fastballs.
By the time Alex Vesia took the mound for the eighth inning, the Dodgers’ lead had swelled by a run thanks to Teoscar Hernandez’s RBI double. Vesia gave that run back, retiring the first batter he faced on a nice play by Pages in left field but then giving up a single, a 10-pitch walk of Geraldo Perdomo and an RBI double to Corbin Carroll.
Edgardo Henriquez took over with the tying runs at second and third. One scored on a swinging bunt single that catcher Ben Rortvedt fumbled, trying to rush back and tag Perdomo at the plate. The next scored on a sacrifice fly.
Clayton Kershaw made his first relief appearance since the 2019 NL Division Series against the Washington Nationals. Like Sasaki, he retired the side in order, sending the game into extra innings.
The Dodgers failed to cash in their free runner in the top of the 10th, when pinch-runner Hyeseong Kim tried to score from second on Mookie Betts’ single to right and was thrown out by Carroll. After intentionally walking two batters to load the bases in the bottom of the 10th, Jack Dreyer and Blake Treinen each got a pop-up to escape.
Tommy Edman’s two-out, two-strike RBI single in the 11th inning gave the Dodgers another lead. Justin Wrobleski protected this one with an uneventful inning.
More to come on this story.