Dodgers blow five-run lead in ninth, lose to Tigers in 10th

The stadium was half-empty. The lead was five runs. The Dodgers were an out away from victory.

Then, disaster struck.

"It's just not us,” manager Dave Roberts said. “It just doesn't happen.”

Except that, on Saturday, it did — the Dodgers blowing a five-run lead in a disastrous ninth inning en route to an 11-9 walk-off defeat to the Detroit Tigers in the 10th.

“We had a five-run lead,” a dumbfounded Roberts said, reliving a sequence that felt impossible until it didn’t. “There's just no excuse for us losing that game.”

Entering the bottom of the ninth Saturday afternoon at Comerica Park, the Dodgers appeared to be cruising to a second straight, series-clinching win over a mediocre Tigers club.

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Their offense was back on track, producing its best game in weeks. The team’s banged-up pitching staff held up, settling down after rookie Justin Wrobleski gave up four runs (three earned) in a five-inning start. And, with a 9-4 lead over Detroit’s light-weight offense, nothing hinted at a forthcoming implosion.

“I felt great,” Roberts said.

Then, everything changed.

The Dodgers’ defeat wasn’t cemented until Gio Urshela’s walk-off two-run homer in the bottom of the 10th, a towering drive that thrilled what remained of the 40,196 spectators.

It was the ninth inning, though, that will give the club nightmares going into Sunday’s first-half finale — one the Dodgers, losers of five of their last six and nine of their last 14 games, will need to win to enter the All-Star break with a series victory.

It began with three Tigers hits off Dodgers reliever Ricky Vanasco, the recently recalled right-hander who hadn’t previously pitched in a game — majors or minors — in the last 10 days.

The last of those hits, a two-run double from Matt Vierling, trimmed the Dodgers' lead to 9-6.

Still, with lockdown closer Evan Phillips emerging from the bullpen, the lead appeared to be safe.

Phillips retired his first two batters, putting the Tigers on the brink of defeat.

Even after an RBI single from Carson Kelly, a worst-case scenario felt out of reach.

Then, Phillips threw a first-pitch cutter to Tigers infielder Colt Keith.

The location wasn’t bad, with Phillips running the ball just off the inner half of the plate. Keith, however, was ready for it, getting just enough behind his towering fly ball to clear the deep wall in right field.

“We went cutter up and in,” catcher Austin Barnes said. “And he just got to it.”

That blast tied the score at 9-9. Then, following a bases-loaded double-play grounder from Freddie Freeman to end the top of the 10th, Urshela walked it off with a no-doubt home run to left, rocketing the winning blast over the heads of a five-man Dodgers infield that was trying to keep a runner at third from scoring.

“With the way we’ve been rolling, we needed to win that game,” Barnes said. “It doesn’t feel good. It hurts.”

Saturday marked just the seventh time in Dodgers history they lost a game after leading by five or more runs through eighth innings. It hadn’t happened since April 2006, when the San Diego Padres erased a 5-0 ninth-inning deficit in an eventual extra-innings win.

This time, the collapse couldn’t have come at a worst point in the season.

Despite their healthy first-place lead in the National League West, the Dodgers are just 23-23 in their last 46 games.

They have struggled to overcome a wave of pitching injuries and ineffective starts from their rotation, which has combined for as many innings as the bullpen in the last 14 games.

They were also hoping to use this weekend as a momentum-builder going into the All-Star break.

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Now, they’ll enter Sunday not only in danger of hitting the midway mark with a series defeat, but will do so facing the uncertainty of a planned bullpen game (at least one roster change is coming, with right-hander Brent Honeywell expected to be called up after being claimed off waivers).

“It's gonna be a piecemeal effort to try to cover nine innings tomorrow,” Roberts said. “We're going to find out which [pitchers] are standing and try to get through tomorrow and get through that break."

In the clubhouse afterward, regret among the Dodgers was running high.

The team had wasted a strong offensive performance, including Shohei Ohtani’s 200th career home run (he also had a triple, a walk, a stolen base and two RBIs), multihit efforts from Teoscar Hernández, Andy Pages and Gavin Lux, and a two-run blast from Kiké Hernández in the seventh inning that seemed to put the game out of reach.

They had squandered chances to add even more insurance, most notably when Pages was doubled-up at second base on a line-drive an at-bat before Hernández’s homer in the seventh.

Most of all, Phillips and Roberts felt the closer's plan of attack was too “predictable” in the ninth — with Keith seemingly sitting on the first-pitch cutter, Phillips’ favored weapon against left-handed batters, even though it was up and off the plate.

“In a vacuum, I can’t throw a better pitch,” said Phillips, who had blown only one save in 15 previous attempts this season. “But a home run is a home run. That’s kind of my point. If he’s expecting it, maybe we’ve got to start zigzagging a bit more [with pitch selection].”

Roberts echoed similar sentiments.

“He throws a cutter to lefties, so guys start to hunt it,” Roberts said. “Even if it's a good pitch, [hitters] have a better chance if that's what they're hunting. … You've got to give [Keith] credit. He put a good swing on it. But [Evan] has got a lot of different ways to get guys out."

Phillips acknowledged as much himself.

"Maybe it’s time to look at doing something else to keep those guys a little honest, if they’re going to expect what I’m anticipating throwing,” he said. “It’s frustrating to get beat on what you feel is your best stuff.”

Really, that feeling could sum up the Dodgers’ performance Saturday.

Their bats finally came alive. After a couple of bumpy weeks, they seemed to be gliding to a stress-free, confidence-building win.

Instead, one bad inning wiped all that away. And after a game the team should have never lost, they’ll have just one more chance to rebound before next week’s All-Star break.

“This one stings,” Roberts said. “But you just got to kind of flush it and be ready to go tomorrow.”

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.