LOS ANGELES -- The late innings felt familiar for all the wrong reasons on Friday night at Dodger Stadium.
On an evening when the Dodgers once led by four runs behind a season-best start from Emmet Sheehan, the bullpen was their undoing in a 6-4 loss to the Cubs, who have won 10 straight games. Chicago scored six unanswered runs over the seventh, eighth and ninth innings to take the series opener against Los Angeles.
It brought an undesirable feeling of déjà vu for the Dodgers, who had to overcome an unreliable bullpen to win back-to-back championships last season.
L.A. signed Edwin Díaz to a three-year, $69 million deal this past offseason in an effort to turn that weakness into a strength, but the closer will be out until the second half after having surgery to remove loose bodies in his right elbow. As a result, the Dodgers have to lean on their veteran leverage arms -- Alex Vesia, Blake Treinen and Tanner Scott -- to get the job done in the late innings.
None of the three was able to keep the Cubs off the board.
"I don't concern myself too much about it, because these are the guys we have," manager Dave Roberts said. "They've pitched well, and they've got to go out there and continue to pitch well. I don't spend too much time thinking about Edwin, because he's just not going to be with us for a while."
After Sheehan matched career highs with 10 strikeouts and 21 whiffs in his longest start of the season, Vesia relieved him with a runner on first and one out in the seventh inning.
Vesia opened the season with 10 scoreless appearances -- in which he inherited six runners and did not allow any of them to score -- but he had trouble finding the zone on Friday, landing only eight of his 20 pitches for strikes. His frustration was apparent as he walked Pete Crow-Armstrong, then gave up a two-run triple to Dansby Swanson and an RBI single to Nico Hoerner.
Treinen, who was scoreless over his first eight outings before giving up three runs without recording an out last Sunday in Colorado, took the mound in the eighth inning. He was unable to protect the Dodgers' one-run lead, serving up a game-tying solo home run to Alex Bregman. The Cubs nearly plated the go-ahead run off him as well, but a perfect relay from center fielder Andy Pages to shortstop Hyeseong Kim to catcher Will Smith cut down Ian Happ at home.
Scott came into a tie game in the ninth inning, and Crow-Armstrong welcomed him to the mound with a base hit off a slider outside. Then Scott made a mistake that was reminiscent of his woes from last season, leaving a four-seamer over the heart of the plate to Swanson, who crushed a go-ahead two-run blast to help the hottest team in baseball complete its comeback.
"PCA, I threw him a slider away that he got to. I mean, it wasn't away enough," Scott said. "And then Swanson, I fell behind on. And I tried getting back into the count with a fastball and left it too middle, middle-away."
With Díaz sidelined, the Dodgers are going with a closer-by-committee approach, with the expectation that Scott will get more save opportunities than others. After a tough first season in L.A. as the team's de facto closer, Scott looked much improved in a setup role, holding opponents to one earned run over his first 12 appearances.
The addition of Díaz anchored the Dodgers' bullpen, allowing relievers like Vesia, Treinen and Scott to have more defined roles than last year. By not reserving an arm for the ninth inning, L.A.'s intention is to continue to deploy its leverage arms in favorable lanes. Roberts believes the three pitchers he called on were the right choices for each situation.
"I wouldn't do anything different," Roberts said. "And we all got to do our parts, and tonight we just didn't get it done."
After L.A. took a 4-0 lead on Smith's three-run homer in the third inning and Kim's RBI single in the fourth, the bats went quiet, continuing a trend from the past week. But even while missing their closer, the others in the Dodgers' bullpen know they should be able to make that lead hold up.
"We’ve still got to win the game," Scott said. "I mean, we’ve got a good enough bullpen that we should win games."