for the most part, really wasn't his fault.

First, he got unlucky that Freddie is gimpy and couldn't jump to his feet as he normally would have done. Had Freddie been able to do that, he makes a better throw to 2nd that isn't deflected by Machado's astute base running. A word on that: it's fairly SOP for a base runner to run at the fielder on 2nd when they're trying to disrupt a double play. Typically they're just trying to make the throw back to first difficult and therefore only they are out. That it resulted in the throw deflecting off of him was a lot more than Manny was hoping for. But anybody who think's his base running was completely out of the ordinary either hasn't watched a lot of baseball or really doesn't pay close attention to double plays.

But if Freddie hadn't been gimpy last night, they get that out, and the next hit ball was another double play ball that should have then ended the inning with 3 batters up, 3 batters down. Of course, that's not what happened. Still should have been a double play ball, but a gimpy Rojas decided he wanted to be a 1-man team. The result of the play should have been Machado tying the game up, but now there's two outs and nobody on. That didn't happen. Machado scored and everybody was safe. Had the double play happened as it should have, Cronenworth gets a meaningless single before Higashioka flies out to end the inning. Sucks that the 1 run scored, but hey. The damage had been limited and now it's only a tie game.

Only that didn't happen. Freddie not being able to jump to his feet is forgivable. But Rojas? You have teammates for a reason, man. Use them.


We'll never know how the game would have otherwise played out, but the Dodgers did manage to outscore the Padres 4-0 after that disastrous 2nd inning.



Again, tip my hat to Buehler, though. He got his head back in it and gave the Dodgers a chance.