Photo Credit: Los Angeles Times
The Dodgers ended up losing to the Cubs by a lot on Thursday night, but the bullpen seemed to be the silver lining in a rough outing for some.
Jimmy Nelson took the ball for the Dodgers as he looked sharp for the inning he pitched in despite a wild pitch from him and a throwing error by Austin Barnes from behind the plate. We saw Josiah Gray come into the game and throw a strong 2nd inning for the Dodgers until he eventually gave up a home run to Michael Hermosillo. Hermosillo looked to have some help from the umpire as he drove the count to 3-0 despite all of the pitches looking to cross the strike zone.
Edwin Uceta then took the ball after Gray eventually walked Ian Happ on 4 pitches and it went south from there. Uceta would end up giving up 5 runs, 4 of them coming in the top of the third, the inning snowballed for him as he gave up a double to the first batter he faced and then another double which scored two. Uceta would come back out for the 4th and give up a solo home run Ian Happ, once again the inning was snowballing for him as he gave up an infield hit and double before Dodgers manager, Dave Roberts, had seen enough and decided to end the inning with 2 outs.
On the offensive side of things, the Dodgers players only could muster 6 hits and failed to drive any of them home. The Cubs pitching staff backed up their offense and kept the Dodgers hitting guessing most of the night as they shut them out. While this was a tough one for Dodgers hitters and two pitchers in particular in Gray and Uceta, the rest of the Dodgers pitching staff came through.
Dodgers Bullpen Only Positive in LossÂ
With the Dodgers already down by 7 runs, it’s hard to find any positives in the loss, but things turned around for the pitching staff as the Cubs wouldn’t score past the 4th inning. Blake Treinen looked strong against the three batters he faced in the 5th inning as he struck out two. Victor Gonzalez backed up that with a strong performance of his own as he also struck out a pair. Ryan Pepiot was the last Dodgers pitcher for the night as he put in a nice outing of his own as his only blemish was a four pitch walk.
Pepiot was the main one to watch on Thursday as he is ranked the Dodgers 6th top prospect in their system according to FanGraphs. The website has him listed as a middle inning relief pitcher, despite being known as a starter, this might be a prediction as to how the Dodgers may end up using him in the future. The website writes “Remember that Pepiot’s stuff took a nose dive during his 2019 draft year and the 2020 developmental environment was weird, so we don’t know if he’ll hold that velocity as a starter.” Whichever way the Dodgers want to develop him, he looks to another key part in the Dodgers future in a stacked farm system.
Best outing of the spring so far? Yeah, I think it's safe to say that goes to @ryanpepiot2 pic.twitter.com/oZRLIpzQMe
— Blake Harris (@BlakeHarrisTBLA) March 5, 2021
Up Next
The Dodgers look to take on the Kansas City Royals as they have Clayton Kershaw slated to take the mound. Game time is scheduled for 12:05 PT at Surprise stadium.
Jacob Cisneros is a writer for Dodgers-LowDown. You can find him on Twitter and Instagram @_JacobCisneros.Â