For perhaps the first time in the now-notorious trend, there were almost no dissenters to the decision.
In what was a largely promising performance for his postseason prospects, rookie right-hander Emmet Sheehan allowed no hits to the San Francisco Giants for the second time in his career, following up his hitless six-inning MLB debut against them in June by spinning 4 ⅔ hitless innings Thursday night.
However, in a reminder about the dangers of counting too much on young pitching, the 24-year-old failed to keep the Giants off the board, with his sterling outing coming to a screeching halt in the top of the fifth.
After getting two quick outs in the frame — including his career-high ninth strikeout of the night — Sheehan plunked Mike Yastrzemski with a pitch, then walked the next three batters he faced, the latter forcing home a run with the bases loaded.
It wasn’t so much that Sheehan, the semi-sidearm-throwing former sixth round draft pick, lost his command. Rather, he simply couldn’t put batters away. In all three walks, he had a full count. But all three times, the Giants hitters outlasted him, scattering foul balls until Sheehan finally missed the zone.
Despite Sheehan’s early exit, the Dodgers still coasted to a 7-2 win against a sloppy, mistake-prone, struggling Giants team that is supposedly fighting for its postseason life.
With the game tied 2-2 in the bottom of the sixth, center fielder Tyler Fitzgerald couldn’t come up with a diving effort on a line drive from Will Smith, leading to a triple. In the next at-bat, right fielder Mike Yastrzemski appeared to forget there was only one out after making a catch, delaying a throw home that allowed Smith to score with ease.
The comedy of errors didn’t stop there.
In the bottom of the seventh, Yastrzemski made a nice running catch for the inning’s first out. But then, Chris Taylor reached on an error by third baseman J.D. Davis (who had entered the game as a pinch-hitter in the fifth following Sheehan’s exit, but struck out against Alex Vesia to extinguish that threat). First baseman Wilmer Flores failed to catch a line drive by James Outman, leading to a double.
And then, on a night the Giants could have gotten back within two games of a wild card spot, they effectively sealed a defeat by giving up two insurance runs on back-to-back wild pitches by reliever Luke Jackson.
For a team that came in with a reputation for self-inflicted blunders, the Giants were somehow worse than advertised.
And while that was enough for the Dodgers to win Thursday, they’ll likely face stiffer (or, at the very least, more competent) opposition come October.
That’s why the real story of the game was the performance from Sheehan — who seems likely to pitch bulk innings out of the bullpen in the playoffs, perhaps in a piggyback role behind one of the club’s short-leashed starters.
If he can replicate his performance over the first four innings Thursday, it could make him an X-factor for the Dodgers’ short-handed staff.
But given the pitfalls he suffered in the fifth, he could also be a warning sign about the club’s patchwork pitching plan.