LOS ANGELES – The Dodgers have fashioned the best record in the National League with two of the hottest hitters in baseball. Just don’t count the Pirates impressed.
Whether in Pittsburgh or Los Angeles, the Dodgers have not been able to solve the Pirates, who are young and appear emboldened enough to embrace what might cause trepidation in others.
The Dodgers’ latest defeat to the Pirates was a 5-3 decision on Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium. Pittsburgh has won four of the five games between the teams in May, winning the season series for the first time since 2016.
“Obviously they’re scoring more runs than us, but it’s just one of those funky things,” Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner said. “We’ll regroup and try to salvage one tomorrow.”
At a loss as to what went wrong isn’t the best way to fix the issue, but at 33-16, the Dodgers won’t fuss. They went 20-9 in May, after all. But they also went 1-4 in the month against the Pirates.
“You know what, I don’t have the answer, but I do know that outside of the one game we’ve won, they really have done a great job of preventing runs against us,” manager Dave Roberts said. “We haven’t found a way to score consecutively and consistently. So you have to give them credit. They’re doing something right.”
While Walker Buehler was unable to hold down the Pirates on Monday, it was another proven pitcher in Julio Urías who had a strikingly similar outing Tuesday. Both Dodgers starters gave up two home runs, including one in each game from rookie Tucupita Marcano. They are the only two home runs of his brief 31-game career.
Marcano jumped on a 95 mph fastball from Buehler on Monday, and a first-pitch 93 mph heater in the second inning Tuesday from Urías. Dodgers pitchers operated against him with a different strategy the remainder of the game.
“[Marcano] had a plan of attack and he attacked that fastball,” Urías said through an interpreter. “[Monday] he was ahead of the count and attacked the fastball and today it was a first-pitch fastball. Afterward, we made the adjustment to go a little bit softer to breaking balls and use those pitches against him.”
Give the Pirates credit. They were making the Dodgers adjust to them.
“Obviously they came in with a plan of attack and they swing at a lot of pitches,” Urías said. “We made adjustments, but knew they were going to swing at a lot of pitches.”
A 20-game winner from a season ago, Urías fell to 3-5 this season. While his 2.89 ERA is in line with his 2.96 mark from a year ago, his run support has been far different. The Dodgers averaged 6.4 runs per nine innings when Urías still was in games last season, but he has received just 2.1 runs of support this season.
“I think Julio, in years past, didn’t have a whole lot of run support,” Roberts said. “It happens to pitchers at different times in different years. But I don’t think it hurts him. He will never use that as an excuse.
“I do know that he doesn’t want to put us behind the eight ball early in the game. To his credit, he fought back and kept us in the ballgame.”
It was a rare day in May when Mookie Betts was kept in check. He went 0-for-4 with a walk, but still walked away tying Roy Campanella’s club record for home runs in May with 12. He also set the club record for extra-base hits in May with 22, passing Jackie Robinson’s record of 21.
Trea Turner did have a two-run home run among his two hits, extending his hitting streak to an MLB-best 23 games.
Yet even a hot month from two of the Dodgers’ top three hitters in the lineup couldn’t derail the Pirates in May.
“I think we’ll take this most months. Obviously there is room for improvement,” Justin Turner said of the team’s 20-9 month. “I think we can play better.”