PHOENIX — It was 2-for-1 night at Chase Field.
The Dodgers hit into five double plays in the first eight innings Tuesday, leaving the door open for David Peralta’s two-run home run off Dodgers reliever Brusdar Graterol in the eighth inning to decide things, lifting the Arizona Diamondbacks to a 5-3 win over the Dodgers.
“That’s hard to do. It really is,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “You’ve got to get baserunners, which is a good thing. But to do that — I don’t see us doing that again this year. That’s hard to do.”
Coupled with a throwing error by Gavin Lux that helped the Diamondbacks tie the game in the third inning, Roberts called the game “the first one in quite some time where I felt we gave it away.”
Justin Turner (who hit into one of the double plays) agreed.
“Hitting into five double plays, it makes it tough offensively to put up a lot of runs,” Turner said. “So yeah, I definitely think we feel like we probably beat ourselves.”
The Dodgers needed just nine pitches to take a multi-run lead in Monday’s game. They regressed Tuesday – it took them 24.
The last time Zach Davies faced them (last June) he pitched the first six innings of a combined no-hitter by the Chicago Cubs at Dodger Stadium. This time, back-to-back walks of Freddie Freeman and Trea Turner then an infield single by Max Muncy loaded the bases with two outs.
Will Smith unloaded them with a three-run double into the right-center field gap.
That was it, though. The Dodgers didn’t score again the rest of the night – thanks in large part to the five double plays, a pickoff of Trea Turner and a running catch at the center field wall by Daulton Varsho against Justin Turner.
Four of the double plays came on ground balls. One was self-inflicted – and particularly costly.
With runners on first and second and one out in the seventh, Mookie Betts cracked a line drive to left field. It carried to Peralta in left. Chris Taylor had already charged around third base by then and was easily doubled off second base to end the inning.
“It was just a bad read,” Taylor said. “For some reason, I thought he hit it off the end of the bat and thought it was going to be down. Tried to get a good jump and score. But it stayed up and he caught it.
“Can’t happen.”
The last of the double plays came in the eighth inning when the Dodgers loaded the bases for Smith again. He grounded into an inning-ending double play.
Five of nine Dodgers batters reached base in the seventh and eighth innings. None of them scored.
“We had Davies on the ropes. It should have been a completely different game,” Roberts said. “But to their credit, he made pitches when he needed to, they made plays when they needed to. And any big-league ball club, you don’t put them away and keep them in games, things can happen, as evident tonight.
“I don’t know how many guys we left on base (six) but we had opportunities, created traffic. Just couldn’t get a hit when we needed.”
It would have been a different game if Lux had made a simple play in the third inning.
Starter Tony Gonsolin gave up a single to Geraldo Perdomo and walked the No. 9 hitter, Jose Herrera, on four pitches to start the third inning. Varsho bounced an easy ground ball to Lux at second base but Lux’s throw was way off the mark and skipped past Freeman at first base.
“I just didn’t have a good grip (on the ball),” Lux said. “I should have taken another shuffle. I had a lot more time.”
Two runs scored on the play and Pavin Smith tied the score, 3-3, when he followed with an RBI single. The error extended an inning that forced Gonsolin to throw 33 pitches, moving up his departure after four innings.
The relief relay put up zeroes until Brusdar Graterol walked Cooper Hummel — another four-pitch walk — to start the eighth inning then left a 1-and-1 slider to Peralta over the heart of the plate.
“I think it goes back to the first hitter he faced. A four-pitch walk. Wasn’t a good walk,” Roberts said. “Then he left a slider out over. Peralta put a good swing on it.”