Not going to beat a dead horse, but the Dodgers ugly 8-3 loss to the San Diego Padres at Petco Park on Saturday night was another one of those ‘should have won’ games that Dodgers manager Dave Roberts‘ team flat out gave away. But as we were all taught as kids, ‘You can’t win them all.’

Then again, it’s never a good idea to give them away, which is exactly what Roberts’ team did – quite possibly of his own doing.

“The inning got away from us right there and we just couldn’t minimize the damage.” Roberts told reporters of the bottom of the eighth inning, during which his team allowed seven runs, thereby turning a 3-1 Dodgers lead into an ugly 8-3 loss.

In an attempt to be politically correct, I will try not to throw recently re-acquired utility infielder/outfielder Kiké Hernández under the bus, but to be perfectly honest, it was his (very) ill-advised blunder that led to that seven-run eighth inning, which he conveniently avoided when asked directly about it postgame:

“I haven’t seen the replay yet so whether or not we had a play, so maybe tomorrow I’ll have an answer for you.”

You did not have a play, Kiké

To be fair, it was the Dodgers bullpen that set up Kiké’s epic fail.

After an outstanding start by 26-year-old Dodgers right-hander Michael Grove, who was inexplicably pulled by Roberts after having made only 20 pitches (14 strikes) and striking out three of the four batters he faced, and after 31-year-old veteran left-hander Ryan Yarbrough allowed one run on three hits over his 4.1 innings of relief followed by a scoreless one-hit 1.1-innings by hard-throwing Dodgers right-hander Brusdar Graterol, the proverbial wheels fell off the bus.

Twenty-nine-year-old Dodgers right-hander Yency Almonte allowed three runs on one hit, after having walked two of the four batters he faced. He was (finally) replaced by 27-year-old Dodgers left-hander Caleb Ferguson, who allowed four runs on five hits before Roberts (finally) replaced him with 27-year-old left-hander Alex Vesia, who made one pitch to (mercifully) bring an end to that horrific eighth inning.

The one Dodgers highlight of the night was Dodgers catcher Will Smith slugging his 14th home run of the season, a 368-foot blast down the left field line off of Padres left-hander Blake Snell, so there’s that.

Play Ball!

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