CHICAGO — It looks like the Dodgers traded for Tarik Skubal to be their stopper.
In his shortest start of the season, Justin Wrobleski allowed seven runs on four home runs in just 4⅓ innings, putting the Dodgers in a hole on the way to their fourth consecutive loss, 10-5, to the Chicago Cubs on Monday night.
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The losing streak matches the Dodgers’ longest of the season. Skubal will make his Dodgers debut on Tuesday.
After giving up eight home runs total in his first 16 starts this year, Wrobleski has given up eight in his past two starts, the first time this season the Dodgers have lost two of his starts in a row. Wrobleski has given up 12 runs in 10 1/3 innings in those two losses.
“I think sometimes teams are gonna have, honestly, good swings off you. And yeah, today that happened,” Wrobleski said. “But there’s no excuse. I think I need to be better than I have these past two. It’s frustrating. But I think you’re definitely who you are when you’re at your worst. So I think it’s about going into this weekend, grinding, keep on keeping on, same old stuff. Just work on stuff. Hammer stuff out with Mark (Prior) and Connor (McGuiness) and everybody and get back to it. Get back to throwing the ball well.”
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts raised the specter of pitch tipping again as he did with Roki Sasaki early in July — leading to Sasaki’s new glove.
“It’s interesting. I think the stuff is really good, as good as it’s been all year,” Roberts said. “It just seemed like they were on everything. Some balls that were executed decently, they still took good swings, and when he made good pitches, they spoiled. And when he did make mistakes, it just seemed like they went out of the ballpark.
“So we’re going to dig into it, and not trying to take anything away from those guys over there offensively. They were taking really good swings, and he’s got really good stuff, so something just really stood out that they were just checking off. They were on virtually everything he threw up there.”
Asked if he might be tipping his pitches — either physically or by falling into pitch selection patterns now that he is a well-known commodity in MLB — Wrobleski acknowledged it was “possible.”
“It’s something we’re gonna go look at,” he said. “I changed the game plan pretty significantly today, and felt like they were still on some stuff.
“It’s baseball. They get paid a lot of money to play this game too. They’re good players. And yeah, sometimes you’re gonna get got. It’s hard a league to pitch in.”
Wrobleski is not the only member of the Dodgers’ pitching staff getting got recently. Over the weekend, Dodgers pitchers gave up seven home runs in the three-game sweep by the Boston Red Sox (who still rank 26th in MLB in home runs despite the slugging weekend) and have given up 16 in their past seven games.
It was the Dodgers’ defense that seemed to lag during their slump before the All-Star break. Now it’s the pitching that is buffering.
In their 16 games since the All-Star break, Dodgers pitchers rank second in MLB with 29 home runs allowed (only the Seattle Mariners have given up more). Not coincidentally, the Dodgers are now a .500 team (8-8) in the second half after a successful road trip out of the break.
“It’s hard to defend the homer,” Roberts said. “A solo homer doesn’t beat you, but three or four of them does. So I don’t know. … A lot of it certainly is execution, and we have to find a way to put that ball on the ground and get soft contact, which, yeah, since the break, we just haven’t done a consistent job of it.”
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The Dodgers were the first to reach the Wrigley Field bleachers on Monday, though. After Shohei Ohtani and Andy Pages led off the game with back-to-back singles, Tommy Edman lined a three-run home run into the left field seats.
The Cubs caught on quick and turned it into a giveaway day for the fans seated in the left-field bleachers.
Wrobleski left a 1-and-1 fastball to Seiya Suzuki at the top of the zone in the first inning. Suzuki hit it 106.6 mph into those bleachers.
In the second inning, it was a 2-and-2 fastball out over the plate that Kevin Alcantara hit for hit first MLB home run.
In the third inning, Carson Kelly kept the 2-by-2 theme going when he hit the Cubs’ third two-run home run, sending a 1-and-1 slider into the bleachers.
In the fifth, Michael Busch went solo for only the fourth of his 14 home runs this season hit off a left-hander, ending Wrobleski’s night.
“I think last week some of them were better pitches than this week,” Wrobleski said, comparing his four-homer outings. “I think the one to Kelly is not a great pitch. The one to Seiya — I mean I’m not super upset with that. I think maybe most ballparks probably hold that, or it’s off the wall and not a home run there.
“But overall, (I) just didn’t throw the ball well enough today, obviously. I’ve been pretty frustrated these last two. So just continuing to work on things, get better and hopefully come back out and go on a run here and have a nice little scoreless streak.”
The Dodgers won the long-drive contest when Teoscar Hernandez hit a 443-foot drive onto Waveland Avenue in the sixth inning. Hernandez’s third home run in the past five games at least kept the Dodgers in touch, down 7-5. But they didn’t do themselves any favors on the bases.
Ohtani — who is not expected to steal bases while playing with a troublesome left knee — was picked off first in the second inning. It was the fourth time in the past two weeks that Ohtani has made an out on the bases. And in the sixth inning, Kyle Tucker tried to stretch a single into a double and was thrown out by Suzuki. The next batter, Hernandez, homered.
“We didn’t give them 27 outs. We gifted them a couple,” Roberts said. “You look back at the last few weeks, we haven’t forced other teams to play 27 outs. It still makes life a lot easier for the opponents, and it’s not what we typically do. I don’t have an answer. We just have to be better.”
The Cubs put the game away in the bottom of the sixth, scoring three times against Edgardo Henriquez and Tanner Scott. Henriquez walked the bases loaded before Scott came in. He got a called third strike on Kelly, but Kelly challenged the call and ABS overturned it, forcing in a run. Two more scored when Busch lined a two-out single into right field.
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The Dodgers have been outscored 30-15 during this four-game losing streak.