Victor González gave up his first runs of the season and the Los Angeles Dodgers fell short with a late rally, resulting in a 6-5 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals.
Noah Syndergaard was shaky to begin his second start since having trouble with a blister/cut on his right index finger. He nearly got through a scoreless first inning after Paul Goldschmidt’s single and a Nolan Gorman walk, but Willson Contreras’ two-out RBI single provided the Cardinals with a 1-0 lead.
Alec Burleson’s RBI double and a Lars Nootbaar sacrifice fly put the Dodgers in a 3-0 deficit in the second inning. To Syndergaard’s credit, he retired 11 of 12 batters after Burleson’s extra-base hit to get through the fifth inning. Included in that was retiring the final seven batters faced.
Mike Mikolas retired the first 10 batters faced before Freddie Freeman’s one-out double in the fourth inning. That extended Freeman’s hitting streak to 10 games, however nothing came of it as he was stranded by J.D. Martinez and Max Muncy.
The Dodgers again threatened to cut into their deficit in the fifth inning when David Peralta doubled and Jason Heyward followed with a leadoff single. Mikolas was out of the inning two pitches later, retiring Chris Taylor and Austin Barnes.
The Dodgers did not have their leadoff man reach until Mookie Betts’ single in the sixth inning, and it wound up sparking a rally. Freeman’s base hit put runners at the corners, and Martinez extended his hitting streak to five games with a three-run homer that pulled L.A. even.
St. Louis attempted to get two innings from Ryan Helsley to finish the game, but he stumbled in the ninth. Miguel Vargas led off with a double, Peralta singled, and Heyward hit an RBI double to chase Helsley.
Will Smith’s sacrifice fly got the Dodgers within a run before Giovanny Gallegos could convert the save.
Dodgers bullpen production
Yency Almonte and Justin Bruihl each threw a scoreless inning before González ran into trouble in the eighth. Tyler Cyr took over for González and allowed a single before getting the final two outs of the eighth inning.
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