Opportunity knocked and knocked and knocked Monday night.
Time after frustrating time, the Dodgers failed to answer.
In a contest the club felt like it had to have, already trailing the Arizona Diamondbacks by a game in the National League Division Series, chances repeatedly arose for the Dodgers to erase an early deficit, avoid a daunting two-game hole in the best-of-five playoff series, and drag themselves back into the October fight.
Instead, they couldn’t capitalize, suffering a 4-2 loss in Game 2 of the NLDS that leaves them clinging to precarious little postseason life.
Game 3 will be Wednesday in Phoenix. And the Dodgers will be facing a scenario that seemed unfathomable entering this series: Win three straight games, or succumb to a second straight NLDS exit.
Just like in their Game 1 defeat to the upstart Diamondbacks, who finished 16 games behind the 100-win Dodgers in the regular season and were universal underdogs in this series, the Dodgers faced another early deficit Monday.
In his first career playoff start, rookie starter Bobby Miller struggled to find the strike zone against an Arizona lineup markedly more selective than they had been in Game 1.
Miller issued a full-count walk to leadoff hitter Corbin Carroll, who took all six pitches he saw. Ketel Marte followed with a bunt single, putting the 24-year-old right-hander under immediate stress.
After Tommy Pham singled to load the bases, James Outman saved a couple runs in the next at-bat, robbing Christian Walker of extra bases with a leaping catch at the wall for a sacrifice fly.
However, the Diamondbacks didn’t relent. Pham stole second, allowing a run to score on a Gabriel Moreno grounder that might have otherwise been an inning-ending double-play. Then, Pham scored on Lourdes Gurriel Jr.’s two-out single to center, staking the Diamondbacks to a 3-0 lead before the Dodgers had come to the plate.
Desperate to keep the deficit from growing — and following through on his promise Sunday to “manage Game 2 like it’s Game 7” — Roberts then got aggressive with the bullpen.
With two on and two outs in the second, he summoned set-up man Brusdar Graterol, who promptly ended the threat by getting Pham to ground out.
“Now is as good a time to use our ‘pen,” Roberts told the TBS television broadcast in an in-game interview after the inning. “I don’t think we could afford to go down 4-0 right there.”
Graterol returned to the mound for a clean third inning, then went back out for the fourth — his first time pitching across three different innings in an outing in his MLB career.
Dodgers starting pitcher Bobby Miller walks off the mound after being pulled by manager Dave Roberts in the second inning Monday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
The moves worked. The Dodgers got two more outs from Graterol in the fourth, then ended the inning when Will Smith threw out Geraldo Perdomo trying to steal second.
Another high-leverage reliever, Ryan Brasier, retired the side in order in the fifth.
And in between that, the Dodgers offense finally found some life, when J.D. Martinez hammered a center-cut fastball from Zac Gallen — one of several down-the-middle pitches the Arizona starter had dared the Dodgers with early on — to right field for a solo home run that made it 3-1.
That set the stage for several late-game opportunities for the Dodgers, who brought the tying run to the plate in each of the next four innings.
J.D. Martinez hits a solo home run in the fourth inning against the Diamondbacks in Game 2.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Every time, though, they came up empty.
The biggest blunder came in the fifth, following a one-out walk from Outman and single from Miguel Rojas.
In a moment the Dodgers couldn’t have scripted any better, superstar duo Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman strolled to the plate against Gallen — a right-hander the team had dominated in two regular-season meetings this year.
Chavez Ravine rose to its feet. A slow-building wave of momentum felt as though it would finally crest.
Instead, in a sequence indicative of the Dodgers’ offensive incompetency in these two games, both superstars failed to deliver.
Betts hit a weak grounder up the middle for a fielder’s choice, part of a hitless performance that leaves him with three-for-his-last-34 in postseason play dating back to 2021.
Arizona Diamondback pitcher Ryan Thompson celebrates after getting out of a bases-loaded jam in the sixth inning against the Dodgers.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
Freeman then froze on a full-count curveball, taking a third straight bender from Gallen, who had only thrown the curveball, his signature pitch, 13 times prior on the night, right down the middle for a called third strike.
Betts and Freeman combined for another wasted opportunity in the eighth, when Betts reached on an error only for Freeman to ground into a double play. Combined, the MVP candidates are now one for 13 in the series, having reached safely only four total times.
The bottom of the lineup couldn’t save the day either, coming up short in the sixth after a Gurriel Jr. homer — the only run allowed by the Dodgers bullpen in 7⅓ innings — stretched the Arizona lead to 4-1.
With one out in the sixth, back-to-back singles chased Gallen from the game. His replacement, left-hander Andrew Saalfrank, then loaded the bases with a walk to Chris Taylor and gave up a run on a Kiké Hernández infield single, a pair of pinch-hit at-bats that trimmed the deficit back down to two.
For a brief moment, belief began swirling back through Dodger Stadium.
Once again, however, it didn’t last.
Outman whiffed on a full-count sinker for the second out. Then, with right-hander Ryan Thompson on the mound, left-handed bench bat Kolten Wong grounded out in place of Rojas — part of the Dodgers’ one-for-six struggles with runners in scoring position.
Dodgers shortstop Kiké Hernández reacts after failing to throw out a Diamondbacks batter at first base in the ninth inning of Game 2 on Monday.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
The Dodgers aren’t completely dead. There is some precedent for teams overcoming two-game holes in best-of-five series; it has happened 10 out of 88 times previously, and twice in 16 occasions under the 2-2-1 division series format in which the home team lost the first two games.
Still, Monday offered ample opportunities for a response, for a rally, for a reason to believe the Dodgers could still get themselves righted.
Instead, they let a winnable game slip through their fingers. And now just one loss separates them from another early October departure.
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