Dodgers bullpen holds it together as Freddie Freeman walks it off in the 11th over White Sox
A 5-4 Dodgers victory over the Chicago White Sox that was made possible by Chris Taylor’s sixth-inning grand slam and Freddie Freeman’s 11th-inning walk-off RBI single Thursday night served as one giant cleansing breath for their beleaguered bullpen.
The Dodgers entered the game with a 4.90 bullpen ERA, the second-worst mark in baseball ahead of only the Oakland Athletics, but four relievers combined to blank the White Sox on one hit and strike out nine over the final six innings before a crowd of 48,655 in Chavez Ravine.
Shelby Miller, in his first game back off the bereavement list, threw two scoreless innings in relief of starter Michael Grove. Yency Almonte struck out the two batters who tagged him for a double and a homer in Wednesday night’s loss — Eloy Jimenez and Jake Burger — in a one-two-three eighth.
Evan Phillips struck out two of three batters in a clean ninth and returned for a 10th inning in which the right-hander escaped a first-and-third, one-out jam by striking out No. 3 batter Luis Robert Jr. with an 85-mph sweeper and cleanup man Jimenez with an 86-mph sweeper.
Dodgers fall behind 4-0 early, but Chris Taylor’s grand slam evens it, setting the stage for Freddie Freeman’s winning single.
Left-hander Caleb Ferguson kept the score tied in the top of the 11th by striking out Burger, getting Andrew Vaughn to fly to center and Yasmani Grandal to ground to third.
The Dodgers then won it in the bottom of the 11th after Taylor, the automatic runner at second, took third on Grandal’s passed ball, Miguel Rojas walked and Mookie Betts capped a 12-pitch at-bat in which he fouled off six two-strike pitches against left-hander Garrett Crochet with a walk to load the bases.
Freeman, with the infield and outfield in, lofted a fly ball that bounced near the warning track in center for the win.
“When C.T. hit that homer, I think it kind of reinvigorated us [in the bullpen], we felt the momentum shift into our favor, and I think we saw it as an opportunity to get back on track,” Phillips said. “It was one guy after another … Shelby throwing two strong innings, Yency throwing a good inning, Ferg and I carrying the torch through the end of the game, and our hitters kept us in it, too.
“They battled for us through our tough stretch, so it kind of felt like we returned the favor tonight. It was a great team win, just a huge weight off our shoulders to win in that fashion, to kind of grind out a game as a group. It feels really good.”
The win moved the Dodgers (39-30) to within two games of the Arizona Diamondbacks in the National League West and snapped a streak of three straight series losses.
“We’ve kind of been in a slump here, but tonight felt like a momentum changer,” Taylor said. “Hopefully we can kind of ride that going on and get on a roll here moving forward.”
The Dodgers advanced only one runner to second base in the first five innings against White Sox starter Dylan Cease, and they trailed 4-0 after Grove gave up back-to-back solo homers to Robert and Jimenez in the first inning and Burger and Vaughn in the fourth.
But Will Smith led off the bottom of the sixth with a single to center field, and David Peralta hit a one-out, broken-bat single to center. White Sox manager Pedro Grifol summoned hard-throwing right-hander Reynoldo Lopez, who got Miguel Vargas to fly to right for the second out.
James Outman, who had two hits and 11 strikeouts in 17 at-bats over 10 games, lined a hard single to center, but normally aggressive third-base coach Dino Ebel held Smith at third, a wise choice considering Robert’s one-hop throw to the plate from center would have probably nailed Smith.
“Robert throws tremendously well, the ball was hit right at him, he’s coming in, and he threw the ball on a dime,” manager Dave Roberts said. “Dino does a lot of homework. It doesn’t look good when you hold a guy from second base [with two outs], but he would have been out, so it was a good hold by Dino.”
Ebel’s decision looked even better after Taylor drove a 98-mph fastball into the left-field pavilion for his 100th career home run, his fifth grand slam and a 4-4 tie.
“It gave us a pulse,” Roberts said of the slam. “C.T. is a guy who prepares, he comes up with big hits, he has his entire tenure with us and this was another big one. Lopez is tough on right-handers, he got into a count and put up a four spot. It was a big hit.”
The first home run of Taylor’s big-league career was also a grand slam, which he hit as a member of the Seattle Mariners off Arizona’s Silvino Bracho on July 15, 2016.
“It’s pretty cool to do it in that fashion,” said Taylor, who got the home run ball back from the fan who caught it. “Obviously, it was a big momentum-changer.”
Taylor, starting at third base in place of the injured Max Muncy, helped preserve the tie with a clutch defensive play in the top of the seventh.
Miller retired the side in order in the sixth but got into trouble in the seventh when Elvis Andrus led off with a double and took third on Gavin Sheets’ one-out grounder to second, where Vargas made a nice diving stop toward the hole and threw to first.
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Robert walked, putting runners on first and third with two outs.
As Robert headed for second on a stolen-base attempt, Smith, the Dodgers catcher, pump-faked a throw to second that caught Andrus too far off the bag at third.
Smith threw to Taylor, who chased Andrus toward home and applied a diving tag on his leg to end the inning.
“I think I made that play more difficult than it needed to be,” said Taylor, who tagged Andrus about 12 feet away from the plate. “I probably should have just tossed it to Will. On the rundowns, I always think if you can not throw the ball and tag the guy out, do it. It was a little closer than I wanted it to be.”
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