I will be the first to admit that when Dodgers right-handed reliever J.T. Chargois gave up the game-winning three-run walk-off home run to Colorado Rockies third baseman Ryan McMahon with two outs in the bottom of the ninth on Saturday night, I was absolutely livid – perhaps even more so than I was the night before when Dodgers left-hander Zac Rosscup gave up the game-winning two-run home run to (wait for it…) Rockies third baseman Ryan McMahon. I mean, the Dodgers were one out away from taking a full one-game lead over the Arizona Diamondbacks in the NL West standings.

Instead, Chargois not only blew the game, the save, and suffered his third loss of the season, he absolutely trashed what was unquestionably Dodgers right-hander Walker Buehler‘s best start of his brief two-year MLB career.

Buehler had allowed no runs and only four hits, with three walks and six strikeouts over his brilliant 7.0 innings of work … at Coors Field.

Buehler was replaced in the eighth inning by Dodgers new folk hero Caleb Ferguson, who was absolutely brilliant. The 22-year-old Columbus, Ohio native and Dodgers 2014 38th-round draft pick out of West Jefferson High School in West Jefferson, Ohio struck out Rockies pinch-hitter David Dahl on three pitches, got always dangerous Rockies center fielder Charlie Blackmon to fly out to Dodgers center fielder Kiké Hernandez, and got equally dangerous Rockies second baseman DJ LeMahieu to fly out to Dodgers right fielder Yasiel Puig in foul territory in the right field corner.

There was zero doubt in my mind that Ferguson could have easily gone another inning and another 20 (or so) pitches on Saturday night. Unfortunately, there was in Doc’s mind.
(Video capture courtesy of SportsNet LA)

What was most impressive is that Ferguson had done all of this on only 15 pitches (11 strikes), leaving every Dodger fan on the planet believing that he would most certainly come back out and pitch the ninth inning, with Dodgers All-Star closer Kenley Jansen out for at least the next three weeks due to an irregular heartbeat.

But instead of Ferguson coming out of the Dodgers dugout to pitch the bottom of the ninth, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts brought left-hander Scott Alexander in from the bullpen to (try to) get the final three outs to secure what should have been Buehler’s sixth win of the season.

He did not.

After striking out Rockies right fielder Carlos Gonzalez, Alexander gave up a double to Rockies shortstop Trevor Story, prompting Roberts to bring in Chargois to face Rockies pinch-hitter Nolan Arenado. On a 3-1 count, Chargois hit Arenado in the left hip with an 85-mph slider to put the tying run on first base and bringing the potential winning run to the plate in the form of Friday night’s hero Ryan McMahon.

On the second pitch of the at-bat, a 95.2-mph four-seam fastball, that potential winning run became the winning run when McMahon launched it on top of the high wall in straightaway right field for the three-run walk-off home run.

Livid indeed.

It took a good two hours for me to finally settle down enough to the point where I could bring myself to watch that devastating ninth inning again on MLB.TV.

What I had failed to notice when watching the original live broadcast is that Chargois’ pitch, which I had initially thought was right down the middle, was actually a very good pitch that just ticked the inside corner of the plate right at McMahon’s knees.

I was shocked.

Here I was ready to feed the 27-year-old Sulphur, Louisiana native to the wolves for blowing the game – which he of course did – but somehow McMahon had managed to turn on the pitch, barrel it up, and send it 391 feet into the cool Denver night for a three-run home run.

Who knew?

It wasn’t until taking a second look at McMahon’s devastating three-run walk-off home run that I realized that Chargois had made a pretty good pitch to the Rockies third baseman. He simply put a very good swing on a very good pitch. (Video capture courtesy of SportsNet LA)

After coming to grips with the fact that it wasn’t the pitch that had lost the game, I immediately returned to the thought that Chargois, or even Scott Alexander, shouldn’t have even been in the game. It should have been the very reliable Caleb Ferguson who, as previously noted, had made only 15 pitches in the eighth inning.

Keep in mind that Ferguson is a starting pitcher who was moved into the bullpen when Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw returned from the disabled list on June 23. As such, going two innings would have been a piece of cake for Ferg.

So why, then, did Roberts pull him after going only one inning and making only 15 pitches?

“Because with only the day off, with him throwing I think 20 pitches with one day off, we’re trying to kind of … I don’t want him to go … we didn’t want him to go two innings tonight,” Roberts told SportsNet LA’s Alanna Rizzo almost apologetically after the game. “So that was predetermined that he was going to give us one inning tonight. So, obviously there’s a desire, but we’re still trying to take care of him.”

Now I’m no trainer, nor a pitching coach, but I have to believe that Ferguson, who has been averaging 2.5 innings and 39.6 pitches per outing prior to Saturday night’s game, most certainly could have gone another 20-ish pitches, with a very strong likelihood that the outcome of the game would have been far more favorable.

In other words, it wasn’t Chargois’ 95.2-mph four-seam fastball that lost the game, it was Dave Roberts using the wrong pitcher.