Yamamoto tosses 6 scoreless frames, but LA offense can't capitalize

ST LOUIS – Very few things have been predictable for the Dodgers in what has been, to date, a turbulent title defense in 2025. The unending wave of pitching injuries which saw Tony Gonsolin placed back on the 15-day injured list on Saturday morning hasn’t yet capsized them, but a week’s worth of struggles with runners in scoring position will require some extra ballast.

Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the only Dodgers starter to take his turn as scheduled every time through this season, delivered six strong innings in L.A.’s 2-1 loss to the Cardinals at Busch Stadium which saw them drop the series to St. Louis. That series has been defined thus far by a lack of timely offense; despite 19 hits spread across the first two games, the Dodgers are just 1-for-25 with runners in scoring position.

That continues a discouraging trend that began following an 18-2 thrashing of the Yankees on May 31. They were 9-for-17 with RISP in that game, but they are a mere 8-for-59 in the same situations in the week that followed, capped by Saturday’s loss.

“It kind of goes in waves,” manager Dave Roberts said. “You can’t kind of ride the emotional waves, and knowing that each guy is putting in the work and prepared, it’s gonna turn. There’s certainly no kind of angst or panic. Frustration, certainly, because you don’t like losing and not driving in runs when you have opportunities.”

“It’s a long season, and we’re going to go through stretches like this,” said Kiké Hernández, who entered the game as a pinch-hitter for Michael Conforto in the sixth inning and later delivered a single in the eighth. “It’s happened before, and we’ve come out of it on the other side. Just can’t get too emotional about a week of games. In terms of the length of the season, six [or] seven games is really nothing.”

Indeed, if there’s a good offensive omen to come out of the Dodgers’ performance, it’s that they were able to manufacture a run in the ninth inning against Cardinals closer Ryan Helsley even without finding a hit with a runner in scoring position. After Hyeseong Kim led off the inning with a strikeout, Shohei Ohtani bounced a grounder up the middle which appeared to be a sure out before it deflected off the second-base bag and rolled into short right field.

Following a Mookie Betts single which advanced Ohtani to third, Freddie Freeman struck out on a slider which hit the dirt and skipped away from Cardinals catcher Pedro Pagés. Ohtani came home on the wild pitch to erase St. Louis' lead and neutralize L.A.’s own poor batted-ball luck.

A two-out comebacker in the bottom of the eighth inning struck Ben Casparius on the right wrist and rolled far enough away on the infield grass to allow Masyn Winn to score from second base, establishing the opportunity which the Dodgers scratched across in the top of the ninth.

Nolan Gorman led off the bottom of the ninth inning with a ground-rule double and was replaced by pinch-runner José Barrero. He would score the winning run on Nolan Arenado's single after the Dodgers brought Hernández in from left field to act as a fifth infielder with two on and no one out.

“Found a way to score a run,” Hernández said. “It wasn’t pretty, but made it work.”

The ability of the Dodgers to make it work is not in doubt, and any lineup with three former Most Valuable Players in its first three spots – Ohtani, Freeman and Betts – is always a threat to come through at an important time. That the Dodgers have been piling up hits mitigates some of the concern that might be coming from the dugout, even as Roberts acknowledged that his team hasn’t gotten the results they need over this difficult stretch.

“From what my eyes tell me, [opposing pitchers] are going soft, and they’re just not putting good swings on some of those pitches,” Roberts said of his offense. “We are getting hits, so we are getting guys on base, but we’re just not cashing in.”

Even as they preach patience and confidence, the Dodgers understand the urgency of the coming week and a matchup with the second-place Padres in San Diego. That divisional clash is one in which runs will likely be at a premium, especially with a bullpen game and rookie Justin Wrobleski set to take the mound in two of the three games.

“When you’re playing in a tight division race, things might get amplified a bit,” Hernández said. “At the end of the day, we have our lineup, and our lineup is going to hit and we’re going to score runs. Right now it’s not happening, but who knows? We might come out tomorrow and score 15 runs, and we get hot again.”