LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers were barely three innings into their series opener against the Cardinals before the game got away from them completely. Eric Lauer couldn’t find any rhythm, and a five run third inning turned a manageable deficit into a game the Dodgers never really had a chance in. St. Louis piled up 13 runs on 13 hits and left Dodger Stadium with the opener, 13-8, despite a ninth inning push from Los Angeles that arrived a few innings too late. Mookie Betts did his part, driving in four runs on his own, but by the time he got going the hole was already too deep to climb out of.
The Third Inning Buries Lauer
Lauer worked around a leadoff single in the first and made it through a scoreless second, but the third inning is where his night came apart. St. Louis sent ten batters to the plate in that half inning, stringing together five singles, a walk and a hit by pitch that produced five runs and buried any hope of a competitive game. Leo Bernal’s two run single was the back breaker, plating both Iván Herrera and Jordan Walker, and by the time Nathan Church’s RBI single ended the inning, the Cardinals led 7-0. Combined with solo home runs from Ramón Urías and Thomas Saggese in the second, Lauer’s final line read three innings, seven hits and seven earned runs before Seth Halvorsen came on in relief. It was the kind of start that put the bullpen in an impossible spot before the game was even half over.
Betts Refuses to Go Quietly
Down big immediately after Lauer’s exit, Mookie Betts made sure the Dodgers didn’t disappear without a fight. He cleared the bases with a three run double in the bottom of the third, pulling Los Angeles back to 7-3, then doubled home another run two innings later to make it 10-4. He finished the night on base four times, two hits and two walks, and drove in more runs by himself than the rest of the Dodgers’ lineup combined. Shohei Ohtani did his part getting on base too, reaching three times on two walks and a hit by pitch, but he never found a hit to go with it, and the Dodgers couldn’t consistently turn traffic into runs the way St. Louis did.
The Long Ball Keeps Coming
Home runs did the rest of the damage. Urías, Saggese twice, Jordan Walker and Joshua Báez all went deep off a Dodgers pitching staff that cycled through five arms, Halvorsen, Alex Vesia, Kyle Hurt, Justin Wrobleski and eventually position player Enrique Hernández, before the Cardinals even got through the eighth. St. Louis tacked on three more in that frame alone, aided by a throwing error and a wild pitch that turned a two run cushion into an eleven run one. Watching a position player get sent out to pitch the ninth was really all the confirmation anyone needed that this one had long since stopped being competitive.
A Ninth-Inning Rally Comes Up Short
To their credit, the Dodgers didn’t fold quietly. Down 13-5 entering the ninth, they strung together two singles, two walks and a fielding error to load the bases and chip away, getting RBI from Will Smith and Kyle Tucker before Tommy Edman’s single brought home another. Three runs crossed before Teoscar Hernández struck out swinging to end it with the tying run still in the dugout. It made for a more respectable final score than the game ever deserved, but the damage from that third inning was always going to be too much to overcome.
Up Next
The Dodgers turn to Yoshinobu Yamamoto to try to steady the rotation Wednesday, looking to even the series before it slips further away. First pitch is once again scheduled for Dodger Stadium as Los Angeles tries to put Tuesday’s mess behind it and get back to playing the kind of baseball that got them home from Detroit with a series win in the first place.