TORONTO –– With the chance to complete a perfect six-game road trip Wednesday afternoon, the Dodgers instead stumbled with some uncharacteristically imperfect play.
In a 4-3 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays, which snapped the Dodgers’ five-game winning streak, the team fell victim to the kind of mistakes it had largely avoided through the season’s first couple weeks.
There was a blown late-game lead, with the Blue Jays erasing a two-run deficit in the seventh against Jack Dreyer after he walked the leadoff man and gave up three-straight hits.
There was a critical defensive breakdown an inning later, when Will Smith tried to catch Andrés Giménez stealing a base at second –– only to see his throw trickle away from shortstop Miguel Rojas to let baserunner Davis Schneider instead score from third.
On a day the Dodgers’ offense could only manufacture three runs on six hits, wasting a solid six-inning, one-run start from Shohei Ohtani on the mound, that was enough to send them to their first loss in a week.
With the loss, the Dodgers (9-3) also squandered an opportunity to complete a sweep in this World Series rematch.
And in doing so, they handled big moments with the opposite type of execution they managed in last year’s Fall Classic.
Their last trip here, of course, the team took Games 6 and 7 of the World Series by winning almost every pivotal little play.
On Wednesday, however, they had their first two-error game of the season, recorded more walks (four) than strikeouts (three) as a pitching staff, and went just 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position.
Two pitching starts into his first full-time two-way season as a Dodger, Ohtani has yet to give up an earned run.
That didn’t mean he was dominant in his six-inning start Wednesday. He struck out only two batters while letting five reach base (four hits, one single).
Still, when he needed to make a big pitch, he did –– blowing a fastball by Kazuma Okamoto to strand two runners in the first inning, then getting Tyler Heinenman to chase an inning-ending splitter in the second to work around an Alex Freeland error.
He also finished his day by stranding a leadoff double from Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the sixth.
Last year, Dreyer was one of the pleasant (and few) surprises in the Dodgers’ bullpen, posting a 2.95 ERA in his rookie season.
But on Wednesday, he took the first lumps of his second big-league campaign.
Tasked to hold a two-run lead in the seventh, Dreyer instead squandered it while retiring just one of the five batters he faced. It began as most bad innings do, with a leadoff walk. Then, with one out, the Blue Jays tagged him with three-striaght hits, including an RBI double from George Springer and a game-tying single from Daulton Varsho.
Dreyer’s outing marked the first time this year the Dodgers’ bullpen had failed to hold a late-game lead.
And an inning later, it would set up the Blue Jays to score the game’s deciding run.
The Dodgers will be off on Thursday, before beginning a six-game homestand on Friday when the Texas Rangers come to Dodger Stadium.
