The Los Angeles Dodgers suffered a tough Freeway Series loss on Saturday afternoon, falling to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, 5-4, in 10 innings at Dodger Stadium.
The Dodgers erased two different deficits, including one in the ninth inning to send the game into extra innings. Kole Calhoun took Kenley Jansen deep in the top of the 10th inning, securing the victory for the Angels.
Los Angeles had a chance to tie it for a third time in the 10th as with one out in the inning, Andrew Toles launched a ball to deep left field. Justin Upton misplayed it, resulting in the ball dropping and Toles winding up on second.
Toles slowed up a bit before cruising into second, so he was unable to advance to third when he most likely would have made it there safely if he was running hard the whole time.
He explained what made him slow up and why he didn’t try to take third, via Mike DiGiovanna of the L.A. Times:
“I just didn’t know where the ball was,” Toles said. “I was running around the bases, and I was like, ‘What happened?’ Then I looked and [Upton] is on the ground. He didn’t catch it.
“Then I’m like, ‘I’m not gonna be that dude,’ because you can ruin a rally. There’s one out, you take off and then get thrown out. That’s not smart. I’m in scoring position. I’m pretty fast. A base hit, I’m scoring. So it didn’t matter.”
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said he did not have a chance to talk to Toles about the play, but he expected him to be standing on third base at the end of it:
“I don’t know if he thought the ball was out of the park or if he lost sight of it, I haven’t talked to him yet,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.
“Unfortunately with the passed ball we got there, we expected him to be on third off the bat.”
The decision proved to be a costly one as a wild pitch during the next at-bat allowed Toles to advance to third instead of scoring, and then he wound up being stranded at third to end the game.
While the wild pitch was a result of a cross up, which may not have happened if Toles were not on second base, him getting to third still would have put a tremendous amount of pressure on the Angels.
That wasn’t the only reason the Dodgers lost the game though as they went just 2-for-14 with runners in scoring position and stranded 11 runners. So it would be unfair to put the entire loss on Toles when the Dodgers simply did not execute as a team.
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