The Los Angeles Dodgers dug themselves into an early hole and weren’t able to recover in a 7-2 loss to the San Francisco Giants on Monday.
Tony Gonsolin endured one of his worst starts of the season as he allowed five hits and three runs over 3.1 innings of work. The right-hander particularly was plagued by a rough first inning that saw four of the first five batters reach base.
LaMonte Wade Jr. led off with a double and eventually scored on a two-run homer by Buster Posey. Wilmer Flores then went back-to-back with a solo shot to give the Giants a 3-0 lead.
“It was really just one bad pitch to Buster,” Gonsolin said of his first inning. “I kind of hung that slider and he got it. And then made another bad pitch to Flores as well. Other than that, that was the real issue with the first inning.”
Gonsolin did not give up another run the rest of the way, which was helped in part by working out of jams in the second and third innings. “Got a couple nice plays from Belli and Reks there. That really helped out,” Gonsolin said.
“Throwing the offspeed pitches for strikes helps, getting some ground balls with the heater is nice too. But overall just not great.”
When asked how he felt his command has been this season, Gonsolin did not mince words. “Really bad,” he said bluntly. Gonsolin also conceded there is a “mechanical aspect” to his struggles and that it has affected his velocity as well.
His fastball is sitting in the 92-93 mph range after regularly touching 95 mph last season. Gonsolin previously switched to pitching out of the stretch to address these concerns and doesn’t believe another simple change is feasible.
“Right now I don’t really have an answer for you,” he said. “If I knew what was going to fix my command issues going on right now, I would do those. We’re going to take a little dive and see if we can figure it out.”
Roberts: Gonsolin’s command ‘hasn’t been consistent’
Dodgers Manager Dave Roberts agreed with Gonsolin’s assessment of himself and noted his command has been all over the place this year. “It hasn’t been consistent. Tony is a good self-evaluator from that perspective,” Roberts said.
“In the big leagues, stuff and command go hand in hand. You can have all the stuff, but you’ve got to get ahead of hitters, you’ve got sequence the right way and you’ve got to command the baseball. When you don’t, good hitters take advantage of it.
“He’s limited damage, which is a credit to him. He’s continued to fight, compete and give us a chance to win every time he’s taken the baseball. It’s something we’re going to continue to work on.”
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