Manager Dave Roberts said Friday afternoon he was aware his Los Angeles Dodgers were in the midst of their most challenging stretch of the season — but he wasn’t fretting about it.
“Worry about tonight and the start of this game and sort of pick up the pieces and do it the next day,” Roberts said.
The Dodgers might be better positioned than the New York Mets to do that on Saturday night.
The Dodgers will look to clinch a series win when they visit the Mets for the middle game of a three-game set between the rivals, who met last year in the National League Championship Series. (Los Angeles won, four games to two.)
Dodgers right-hander Tony Gonsolin (2-0, 4.05 ERA) is slated to oppose left-hander David Peterson (2-2, 2.86 ERA) on Saturday.
On Friday night — actually, early Saturday morning — Teoscar Hernandez had a go-ahead, RBI double in the 13th inning for the Dodgers, who squandered a three-run ninth-inning lead before earning a 7-5 victory.
The game ended at 12:56 a.m. local time and lasted 4 hours, 8 minutes — not counting a 98-minute rain delay in the third. The teams combined to use 40 players, including 17 pitchers, and stranded 24 runners (12 apiece).
After the Mets scored three times in the ninth off Tanner Scott, a quartet of Dodgers pitchers held New York to one hit over the final 4 2/3 innings. Winner Luis Garcia, the eighth Los Angeles pitcher, tossed a season-high 2 1/3 innings and wriggled out of bases-loaded jams in the 11th and 12th.
The win was the third straight for the Dodgers, whose trip to New York marks the second of nine straight series against teams that began the week with a winning record.
“It’ll be a good test for us,” Roberts said Friday afternoon. “I can’t run away from the fact that we’re playing some good teams.”
The Mets couldn’t run away from the fact they mounted an impressive comeback yet also squandered plenty of opportunities late Friday and early Saturday.
New York had just three hits against a trio of Dodgers pitchers before collecting three hits off Scott, who recorded only one out in the ninth. But the Mets were hitless in their last 17 plate appearances with a runner on base as they lost for the sixth time in eight games.
“It’s always heartbreaking to lose like this,” said Mets outfielder Brandon Nimmo, who left the game following the rain delay due to a stiff neck. “The guys will take tonight and try and regroup, but they’ll be ready to go (Saturday). I have all the confidence in the world.”
The late-inning struggles continued a discouraging trend for the Mets, who are batting just .223 with runners on base this season, ahead of only the Chicago White Sox and Colorado Rockies, who have the worst records in the majors.
“They’re taking good at-bats,” said Jeff McNeil, who had a two-run triple in the ninth. “Sometimes they fall, sometimes they don’t.”
Neither Gonsolin nor Peterson factored into the decision in their previous starts last Sunday. Gonsolin gave up four runs over four innings as the Dodgers fell to the Los Angeles Angels 6-4, while Peterson allowed two runs (one earned) over six innings in the Mets’ 8-2 loss to the New York Yankees.
Gonsolin is 1-0 with an 0.82 ERA in two career starts against the Mets, while Peterson is 1-0 with a 5.74 ERA in four regular-season games (three starts) against the Dodgers. He had a 6.00 ERA in two games (one start) against Los Angeles in last year’s NLCS.
-Field Level Media
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