Early misplays exacerbated by D-backs home runs, digging too big a deficit for the Dodgers to overcome.
The current Dodgers homestand was set up to be a respite, a way to recharge in familiar environs after playing 10 games on the road. Instead, the last seven days at Dodger Stadium have shone light on various flaws and shortcomings of a team playing bad baseball. The Diamondbacks pasted the Dodgers 9-5 on Monday night in a game that was ugly from the jump.
The Dodgers have lost four straight games and five out of seven, thanks to a pitching staff that has allowed 6.86 runs per game on the homestand. The defense hasn’t helped.
Hyeseong Kim won four Golden Glove Awards in the Korean Baseball Organization while playing in the middle infield, the only player in KBO history to win those awards at both shortstop and second base. But the Dodgers are trying to make him into a utility man, and growing pains of that effort led to two runs in the first inning.
With two runners on, a fly ball by Eugenio Suárez was completely lost by Kim and fell untouched for a gift double that directly scored one run, followed by a groundout that instead of ending the inning brought home a second run instead.
Just gonna drop right by ya. pic.twitter.com/CSXd6JX27P— Arizona Diamondbacks (@Dbacks) May 20, 2025
Kim was starting in center field on a night Andy Pages got a rare rest day. They could have played the career infielder at second base and had Tommy Edman in center instead of the other way around. But this was also Edman’s second day off the injured list, and manager Dave Roberts talked last week about how Edman would likely play more infield than outfield for a bit as to not further stress the right ankle inflammation that bothered him more while running.
The Dodgers have allowed runs in the first inning in each of the last five games, 11 runs in total in those last five opening frames.
The second inning started with Max Muncy throwing errantly on a Tim Tawa infield single, then opener Jack Dreyer airmailing a pitch over home plate for a wild pitch that got Tawa to second. Two outs brought home a third run.
Those first three runs looked downright quaint by the third inning, when Landon Knack allowed a pair of two-run home runs before recording his second out.
At this point, down 7-0, Knack’s main job was less about the competitiveness of Monday’s game, but rather to stay in as long as possible to soak up more outs that the most-used bullpen in the majors wouldn’t need to get. To that end, Knack recovered nicely and completed five innings without allowing another run, and even retired his final seven batters faced.
But he needed a career-high 106 pitches to do so, thanks in part to a 16-pitch battle with Gabriel Moreno that ended with a flyout in the fifth inning. It was the most pitches in any major league plate appearance since Anthony Santander singled at the end of a 16-pitch battle against Taylor Clarke on May 2, 2023.
This was just the third time Knack has thrown 100 pitches as a professional, and his other two times were in the minors. He threw 103 pitches for Triple-A Oklahoma City on August 6, 2024, and tossed 101 pitches for Double-A Tulsa on June 10, 2023.
Much like on May 8 in Arizona, the Dodgers hit the ball hard against Brandon Pfaadt but got limited results. The right-hander retired his first 10 batters in this one, and despite 11 hard-hit balls only allowed three hits in his six innings. All three hits were home runs, two by Mookie Betts and one by Shohei Ohtani, but they were all solo shots.
Pfaadt struck out nobody but got through six innings allowing just those three runs.
That pseudo-comeback by the Dodger was somewhat muted when Matt Sauer allowed a home run to Geraldo Perdomo in the eighth inning, Arizona’s third two-run home run of the night.
Those insurance runs proved useful for Arizona, as the Dodgers plated two more in the ninth and put two more runners on, but never got the tying run to the plate.
Monday particulars
Home runs: Mookie Betts 2 (8), Shohei Ohtani (17); Lourdes Gurriel Jr. (8), Gabriel Moreno (2), Geraldo Perdomo (6)
WP — Brandon Pfaadt (7-3): 6 IP, 3 hits, 3 runs, 1 walk
LP — Jack Dreyer (2-2): 2 IP, 3 hits, 3 runs, 1 walk, 1 strikeout
Sv — Shelby Miller (5): 1 up, 1 down
Up next
The Dodgers turn to Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Tuesday night (7:10 p.m. PT; SportsNet LA, MLB Network), with Ryne Nelson on the mound for Arizona.
