The Los Angeles Dodgers fell into a 6-1 deficit in the blink of an eye as Walker Buehler surrendered three home runs to the Philadelphia Phillies within the first two innings on Tuesday night.
It was the first time in Buehler’s career he allowed that many homers in a single start, but rather than allow the Phillies to tack onto their lead, the fiery right-hander buckled down. Buehler followed the shaky beginning with four shutout innings.
His performance allowed the Dodgers to steadily trim into their deficit before taking a lead on Matt Beaty’s pinch-hit home run in the ninth inning. That was short-lived, however, as Kenley Jansen pitched through numbness in his foot en route to a walk-off loss.
Despite the swing in emotions and disappointing finish, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts found silver linings in the face of defeat, as seen on SportsNet LA:
“Every game stings to lose. Especially the way it started. For Walker to hold serve and keep us in the game and turn in a quality outing, actually. After that second inning I thought he got his command back and got rolling. The bullpen up until that last inning was very good and offensively we did some things to keep clawing along, getting the game closer until ultimately the Matt Beaty homer off their closer was a huge hit. So there’s a lot of good takeaways but ultimately we didn’t win a game. As far as the carryover, I think we’ll be ready [Wednesday].”
The loss marked the Dodgers’ first in five meetings against the Phillies this season, and it snapped their three-game losing streak.
The five home runs the Dodgers hit propelled them into the National League lead, overtaking the Milwaukee Brewers. Tuesday was also the 21st game Cody Bellinger and Max Muncy both hit a home run, which leads all MLB duos since the 2018 season.
Even with the loss, the Dodgers maintain a more-than-comfortable 14-game lead over the second-place Arizona Diamondbacks in the NL West standings. They additionally are still one game ahead of the New York Yankees for the best record in baseball.
