LOS ANGELES – Freddie Freeman is not wrong.
“We just didn’t play well tonight. It just wasn’t a good game,” Freeman said pointedly after a 9-4 loss to the New York Mets on Friday night. “If we play better baseball, we’re going to win. Our team is way too good. I think we all know that and I think everything will be fine soon.
In the meantime, they look far from fit. Defense cost them runs against the Mets. The bullpen continues to be unreliable. The initial launch was erratic. And the offense isn’t living up to the hype — including Freeman going 2-for-22 (including 0-for-5 with three strikeouts Friday).
The result is losses in four of their last five games and five of their last seven games after Francisco Lindor’s two-run homer broke a seventh-inning tie and opened the door for the Mets to score five times in the three final rounds.
The Dodgers were beaten 14-6 by a Mets team that has won five in a row and six of its last seven.
“I think when you lose four out of five and you play like we did, it’s a combo. It really is,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “It’s hard to choose one thing. I think every game you watch, it could be the starting pitcher, it could be the pen, it could be offensively, we’re not putting up enough runs.
“Tonight was kind of a microcosm of what we went through. In every facet, we could have been better. I think about a week ago I said we only played about three games of a full game. I think we’re still there. We must therefore put together a complete game as a team. … The good thing about tomorrow is it’s a day game and we won’t have to put up with this loss any longer.
They better sleep quickly then.
The Mets took a 4-0 lead against Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Friday.
The Dodgers’ $325 million man has a 4.50 ERA after five starts and looks like the dominant starter he billed himself to be for only occasional single innings.
Yamamoto fixed a problem. Seven of the eight runs and eight of the 13 hits he allowed in his first four starts came in the first inning — most of them in South Korea, where he didn’t pitch beyond the first inning.
This time, he retired the Mets in order in the first inning, striking out two, and he only needed nine pitches to do it.
Trouble was stuck in traffic and arrived late. Yamamoto gave up a home run to DJ Stewart in the second inning. An error by catcher Will Smith on a dribbler in front of home plate extended the inning long enough for Harrison Bader to drive in a second run with an RBI single.
Yamamoto walked the first batter in the third and gave up a double to Starling Marte. Pete Alonso drove in a run with a single and another scored on a sacrifice fly to make it a 4-0 getaway for the Mets.
Six of the Mets’ seven hits against Yamamoto came after he got two strikes on the batter.
“When he’s doing well, I think like any pitcher, he gets ahead in the count. He sequences his pitch mix,” Roberts said. “He’s a four-pitch guy, so when he’s doing well, he gets ahead and throws hitters away. I think there was that at-bat where he had leverage on (Harrison) Bader and he left a fastball out. He had a chance to attempt the strikeout right away and didn’t make a throw to put him away.
“It’s little things, the focus that when you get leverage with guys in scoring position, you have to be able to put them away. This sort of goes back to the fastball command. But it’s certainly not his fault. We also have to do things as a team offensively.
Shut out by the Washington Nationals on Wednesday, the Dodgers’ offense took its time to get going on Friday.
Shohei Ohtani walked to start the fourth inning, stole second and scored on a two-out RBI single by Teoscar Hernandez, ending a 12-inning scoreless streak for the Dodgers.
In the fifth, Andy Pages led off with a double and scored on Ohtani’s two-out RBI single – increasing his average with runners in scoring position to .100 (2 for 20).
In the sixth, the Dodgers evened the score when two errors by third baseman Joey Wendle helped load the bases with two outs for Chris Taylor. Taylor entered the game 1-for-35 this season with a 30-batter hitless streak.
He went 0 for 31 when he grounded into a double play in the third inning. But that ground ball came off his bat at 100 mph. His two-run single in the sixth came off his bat at 104.7 mph and tied the score.
“Honestly, it was good to do something to help the team,” said Taylor, who finished the second day with 38 points on the season. “It’s no secret that I’ve been working a bit. I just try to keep things as simple as possible. Look for something in the middle of the plate. I’m just glad I was finally able to get through it.
The moment of well-being did not last.
Yamamoto managed six innings for the first time in his MLB career. Daniel Hudson took over in the seventh and struck out Brandon Nimmo to start the inning. Mookie Betts handled a helicopter from Marte, but his throw to first was in the dirt and wide, removing Freeman from the bag.
“When you don’t play baseball very well, things like that always seem to get to you,” Roberts said. “That’s kind of what’s happening right now.”
Hudson took an 0-and-2 lead against the next batter, Lindor. But Lindor battled back to a full count and lofted a hanging Hudson slider into the right-field pavilion.
The Mets added two more runs in the eighth inning against an ineffective Joe Kelly, whose ERA rose to 7.27. Ryan Brasier is tied at 5.00 after allowing another run on three hits in the ninth.
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