The Dodgers had a chance to stop the slide in the finale against Boston, but instead they walked away with another loss and another ugly start from Emmet Sheehan.
Boston’s 8-4 win completed a sweep and pushed Los Angeles into its fourth three-game losing streak of the season. It also marked the Dodgers’ second three-game sweep loss, with the previous one coming July 10-12 at home against the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Red Sox, meanwhile, kept rolling, winning 22 of their last 26 games.
Sheehan’s afternoon unraveled quickly. He didn’t make it out of the third inning, lasting only 2.2 innings on 58 pitches while giving up five runs on six hits, including three home runs.
It began with a leadoff walk, then three singles in the first inning that put Boston ahead 2-0. Masataka Yoshida and Caleb Durbin each delivered RBI singles with two outs.
Los Angeles briefly grabbed the lead in the second, but Sheehan gave it right back in the third - and then some. Ceddanne Rafaela opened the inning with a leadoff homer to tie it, Wilyer Abreu followed with a blast of his own, and Yoshida then went deep to stretch Boston’s lead to 5-3. Sheehan recorded one more out before hitting Andruw Monasterio and heading for the dugout.
The velocity was the part that had to raise eyebrows. Sheehan’s fastball averaged 93.3 mph, which was already 1.2 mph below his season norm, and by the third inning it had dipped to 92.1 mph. He came into the game with a 4.95 ERA, and that number climbed to 5.29 across 95.1 innings.
The Dodgers also had to shuffle the lineup at the last minute. Dalton Rushing was initially in the starting group, but he was scratched just minutes before first pitch because of what the team called minor arm irritation. The Dodgers didn’t say whether it was his throwing arm or his left.
Eliezer Alfonzo took Rushing’s spot and helped get Los Angeles on the board, grounding out with the bases loaded for the first run of the game. Andy Pages then put the Dodgers in front with a single that drove in two runs, giving them a 3-2 lead.
But the late innings turned messy for Los Angeles. Alfonzo was behind the plate when a passed ball with a runner on third allowed Boston to score its eighth run in the eighth inning. That came after Wyatt Mills threw a wild pitch that brought home the seventh.
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