The Los Angeles Dodgers early-season struggles continued on Friday night in their series-opener at AT&T Park, falling to the San Francisco Giants, 6-4.
Hyun-Jin Ryu had another solid outing, leaving with a 4-2 lead in the sixth inning, but the bullpen could not hold it thanks to a four-run seventh inning by the Giants. The main culprit was left-hander Tony Cingrani.
He gave up three hits, a walk and was charged with all four of the runs in the inning. Cingrani’s velocity dipped by a wide margin as the inning went on and at one point the Dodgers trainer even came out to look at him.
Cingrani remained in the game, but the results were not favorable.
After the loss, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts explained on what he saw out of Cingrani and provided some background on the arm trouble he suffered from, via SportsNet LA:
“In that seventh inning right there, I felt really good about Tony in that spot. Belt had the bunt base hit, then there was a fielder’s choice in there, and after that, it just seemed like it wasn’t coming out and as the at-bats kept going on, the velocity seemed to dip a little bit and he was working behind the walk to Crawford and then the Hernandez and Tomlinson at-bats it just seemed like the velocity started to dip. So I had the trainer go out and he said he was fine and he just didn’t have it tonight. His last pitch I think was 90 [mph] so I took him out of the game for precautionary and just because his pitch count got up there. Just talked to the trainer right now and he said he had sort of a dead arm and it just wasn’t coming out tonight.”
Cingrani has been a big part of the Dodgers bullpen so far this season, leading the team with 13 appearances. So if he is forced to miss time then that will be a big loss.
With a doubleheader scheduled for Saturday, the Dodgers can’t afford to be without a bullpen arm so it’s possible that they place him on the disabled list to call up another reliever if Cingrani doesn’t see improvement in the morning.
