Wednesday’s sixth inning was already heading off the rails before Joe Kelly entered the game.
In what became a five-run disaster for the Dodgers, the right-handed reliever simply made the train wreck complete.
After leading by three runs early in the night, and one run entering the sixth inning Wednesday, the Dodgers came undone by a controversial umpire call, some sloppy high-leverage pitching from Kelly and, ultimately, a back-breaking three-run blast from Kyle Schwarber — the most important of his three home runs in the Philadelphia Phillies' series-clinching 9-4 win at Dodger Stadium.
The whole sixth-inning sequence only took about 15 minutes.
But everything that could go wrong for the Dodgers just about did.
“Yeah,” manager Dave Roberts huffed afterward, visibly upset during his postgame press conference. “This is a frustrating one.”
Leading 4-3 at the start of the fateful sixth inning, the Dodgers’ trouble began when Alec Bohm laced a leadoff double against left-hander Alex Vesia, putting the tying run on base three pitches into the frame.
Things got exponentially worse in the next at-bat, when a bunt from Brandon Marsh led to controversy at third base.
As third baseman Kiké Hernández charged on Marsh’s bunt up the foul line, Bohm and shortstop Miguel Rojas raced toward the bag at third. Rojas got there first, received a throw from Hernández and applied a swift tag for what looked like a key first out in the inning.
Immediately, however, third base umpire Hunter Wendelstedt began waving his hands.
Rojas, Wendelstedt determined, had been blocking the base before he received the ball, triggering a defensive interference call.
The only problem: Video replays appeared to show that Rojas was out of the base path until he reeled the ball in. Where Bohm probably should have been out, Wendelstedt made a safe call that wasn’t subject to a manager’s challenge.
“He missed the call,” Roberts said. “This might be the first time I’ve ever said that it was an egregious missed call.”
Frustration quickly ensued.
First, Wendelstedt got an earful from Rojas, growing animated while shouting back at the Dodgers’ veteran shortstop.
“You expect a guy that has been in the league for a long time to have a little bit of feel of the game, what kind of play it is,” Rojas said of Wendelstedt, an MLB umpire of more than 25 years. “I think this guy has seen this play a million times, and he just wanted some part of, I don't know, part of a moment in the game.”
Roberts came running out of the dugout to continue the argument, and was eventually ejected — his first of the year — after ignoring Wendelstedt’s instructions to return to his seat.
“Miggy fielded the baseball about a foot inside the bag, two feet in front of the bag, and did give Bohm a lane because his legs were spread wide with the glove making the tag,” Roberts said. “The spirit of the rule was to deter infielders from blocking the bag, not giving the baserunner a lane or a spot towards a bag and potentially hurting a baserunner.”
“He missed the call,” Roberts added, “and it changed the game.”
Crew chief Marvin Hudson addressed the situation with a pool reporter following the game, citing new guidance for umpires this year that has emphasized base-blocking plays like Wednesday’s.
“[Rojas] was running in front of [Bohm] to third,” Hudson said. “He was in front of third without the ball. So he obstructed the runner. The runner didn’t have a lane to get to the bag.”
Rojas recounted the moment differently.
“I think he predetermined [the call] and he's looking for it, so he can get some attention,” Rojas said of Wendelstedt. “So that's what bothers me.”
Either way, what could have been a one-on, one-out situation instead turned into a dangerous runners-on-the-corners jam.
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Kelly entered the game for the next at-bat, and got one out on a J.T. Realmuto swinging bunt that scored Bohm from third, tying the score at 4-4.
But then, Kelly loaded the bases by walking two of his next three batters (including light-hitting No. 9 hitter Johan Rojas). He threw a wild pitch that gave the Phillies their first lead since the first inning. And to top it all off, he hung a two-strike changeup to Schwarber, teeing up the Phillies’ hottest hitter for a decisive three-run home run — the highlight of Schwarber's four-for-four, seven-RBI outburst.
“Obviously you don’t want to walk the lower guys in the order, but the home run is probably the bigger takeaway for myself,” said Kelly, who now has a 5.23 ERA on the season.
“It’s just inconsistencies,” Roberts said of Kelly. “He’s very talented, but we’re well in the ballgame right there and he’s in the game to limit the damage and that just can’t happen. He knows that.”
Up to that point, the Dodgers (66-49) seemed positioned for an important series win over the Phillies (68-46), taking a commanding 4-1 lead early on against the National League’s winningest team.
After Schwarber led the night off with a solo homer in the top of the first, the Dodgers got RBI singles from Freddie Freeman and Rojas in the bottom of the opening frame. Freeman tacked on two more runs with a bloop two-out single in the second.
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Starting pitcher Gavin Stone preserved the 4-1 lead until the fifth inning, when he was chased from the game following a two-run double from Schwarber. Stone now has a 3.71 ERA this year, and a 6.91 ERA in his last six starts.
Vesia replaced Stone in the fifth and stranded Schwarber by getting Bryce Harper to fly out.
For a moment, the Dodgers’ lead was intact.
One inning — and one dubious defensive interference call later — everything would change.
“I mean, if you make the play and you get the out, the momentum is on your side, and then you probably get out of the inning,” Rojas said of the third-base call, fuming in front of his locker in the postgame clubhouse. “It makes me believe that we have a pretty good opportunity, if we get that out, to win the game.”
Instead, Kelly and the Dodgers quickly imploded, watching their lead in the ever-tightening NL West dwindle to just three games over the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks.
“We left the door open and they took advantage of it, to their credit,” Roberts said. “We lost a series to a good team. It’s really frustrating.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
