PHILADELPHIA – With a week left before the non-waiver trade deadline, contenders in both leagues are lining up to add bullpen help for the stretch run.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts might have appreciated some better seventh-inning options Tuesday night. Then the Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies might not have been playing at 1:15 Wednesday morning when Trevor Ploufe hit a three-run home run off Kike’ Hernandez — yes, Kike’ Hernandez — to give the Phillies a 7-4 walkoff victory in the bottom of the 16th inning.
According to StatsbyStats, Hernandez became the first full-time position player in baseball history to surrender a walkoff home run. It is not the outcome Hernandez envisioned.
“I was 0 for 7 at the plate and this was my chance for redemption,” Hernandez said. “It didn’t work out that way.”
Given a sturdier bridge to closer Kenley Jansen, Roberts might not have burned through eight of his actual pitchers, had Rich Hill (scheduled to start Thursday in Atlanta) warming up in the bullpen to pitch in a save situation and managed to run out of pitching despite the Dodgers carrying a 13-man pitching staff. Roberts might not have sent starter Kenta Maeda out for the seventh inning for only the fifth time in 17 starts this season. Maeda was cruising with a three-run lead and had only thrown 78 pitches to get through the first six innings.
But Maeda gave up a single to Carlos Santana and an RBI double to Maikel Franco, the Dodgers’ bullpen remaining still. Maeda got the next two batters to fly out with Scott Alexander starting to warm up.
“It was what I was seeing,” Roberts said of leaving Maeda in the game. “It’s not a computer game. You have to watch the game too. If he’s throwing the ball well, you don’t say he’s out of the game just because. For me, it was the way he was throwing the ball. Alfaro got him.”
Alfaro had struck out in his first two at-bats against Maeda. Then he reminded Roberts why he has let Maeda face a batter three times in a game just 87 times this season. Maeda’s 1-and-0 fastball came in at 91 mph but left at 114, tying the game.
“With Alfaro, it was about location,” Maeda said through his interpreter. “It should have been lower.
“If I get him out there, I think the probability of our winning would have gone higher.”
Instead, it became a six-hour war of attrition – with an early day game Wednesday afternoon looming ever closer.
The Dodgers used 20 players, the Phillies 22.
Jansen warmed up three separate times as the game dragged on, finally coming in for 1 2/3 innings in the 14th and 15th innings. In the top of the 16th, Hill sprinted from the dugout to the bullpen to warm up in case the Dodgers got a lead.
They didn’t. So Roberts went to Hernandez.
“That was a tough one,” Roberts said. “The guys in the bullpen did a great job all night long. We used everybody, stressed guys. You’ve got (Caleb) Ferguson left who threw 50 pitches two days ago. Young arm. Never done it. Don’t want to put him in harm’s way. At that point in time, you have to call on Rich who threw a bullpen yesterday, 40 pitches. … We didn’t want to go to him unless there was a save situation.
“You don’t want to compromise the starters going forward. They were on line for an extra day and that’s what we wanted. They need that. It’s a decision you have to make and unfortunately we ran out of pitching in the 16th.”
Roberts said he told Hernandez to “just throw strikes.” Hernandez has a strong arm as a defender but said he did not try to throw his hardest out of fear of losing control and injuring a batter.
“It’s hard, right,” Hernandez said of throttling back. “At the same time, if I go out there and throw as hard as I can, I don’t know how hard I can throw. What if I hit someone in the face?”
Sunday in Milwaukee, the Dodgers faced two position players in their 11-2 win over the Brewers. Infielder Hernan Perez and catcher Erik Kratz combined to shut the Dodgers out over the final three innings, Perez throwing a knuckleball that registered as low as 48 mph. “Below hitting speed,” Roberts said by way of explanation.
Hernandez got one out on a fly out but walked the next two batters. Plouffe ended the game when he sent a 2-and-2 fastball that registered 84 mph over the wall in right-center field.
“I was thinking, ‘Just try to throw strikes. Just try to throw as slow as I could,’” Hernandez said. “But I wasn’t near the strike zone so I had to try and put more on it. … I was going to try to give my team six or seven good innings. It didn’t happen.”
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