Despite Blake Snell striking out 10, the Los Angeles Dodgers dropped Saturday's game to the Detroit Tigers.
The Los Angeles Dodgers offense continues to struggle against the Detroit Tigers, losing Saturday's matchup 2-1 on a walk-off hit by Tigers rookie Kevin McGonigle.
Blake Snell continues to set the tempo in his return from the Injured list, getting through five innings in Detroit, striking out 10 and allowing just one earned run on three hits.
In his four starts, Snell is 2-0 with a 1.17 ERA across 23 innings recoded.
Still, the quality of the Dodgers' pitching rotation has not flushed out the bad juju provided by their offense.
A series of events occurred in the third inning for Snell, as he called a timeout abruptly and rushed into the Dodgers dugout. At the time, there was no indication of whether Snell had issues with his pitch com, but, according to Snell, he went into the dugout to adjust a bandage on his blistered big toe.
Snell recalled that one of the announcers in the dugout said that he was going to retrieve "sticky stuff."
"You're tripping," Snell told the announcer via SportsNetLA. It was a quick "change of wardrobe" for the southpaw, changing out his Band-aid, and he continued on with his outing.
Los Angeles has played in 24 one-run games since the start of July. They have amassed a record of 12-12 (.500) in said games, solidifying the amount of stress they've put on all around in the dog days of the season.
The lone source of run came by the bat of Freddie Freeman, who slashed an RBI single in the top of the sixth to tie the game, 1-1.
But again, Los Angeles went cold with runners on base, leaving six men on base, and went 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position. The Dodgers' bullpen artillery of Seth Halvorsen, Alex Vesia, Edgardo Henriquez and Jack Dreyer kept the offense within striking distance.
The Tigers jumped on Dreyer in the ninth inning.
Javier Báez led off the inning with a double and, after a sacrifice bunt from Max Clark, followed by back-to-back walks, McGonigle came up to the plate.
McGonigle took Dreyer's 1-2 slider to the gap of left-center field that bounced over the wall, closing the game for Detroit.
With the loss, the Dodgers drop to 81-55 and have a date on Sunday for an early rubber match.
There is no word yet on whether Shohei Ohtani will act as the opener in that game, considering his latest 20-pitch bullpen session on Friday, but as Dave Roberts said, he is not 100% just yet.
