Last night was flat out embarrassing

A new year, but nothing has changed

Teoscar Hernandez’s grand slam should have gone down as one of the all-time great home runs in Dodgers postseason history.

Instead, it has a chance to be pretty forgotten.

The Dodgers have done nothing but embarrass us over the last three postseasons. They’ve been bounced in the NLDS in two consecutive years. They’ve been eliminated by a division rival in two consecutive years. Well, they’re on the verge of making it a three-peat.

The Dodgers dropped Game 3 on Tuesday night, falling to the Padres, 6-5. I’ve seen some terrible postseason games from this organization, but last night may have been the worst.

Imagine if I told you this 24 hours ago. The Padres would allow a grand slam. They’d only score in one inning. AND they wouldn’t score after the second inning. You’d likely think the Dodgers won in convincing fashion, correct? Haha! Nope! Wrong!

According to Opta Stats, no other team in MLB history has done all of that and yet still won the game, regular season OR postseason. The Dodgers literally lost in a way that has NEVER happened in the history of Major League Baseball. You can’t make this up.

I don’t even know where to begin. Oh, I know! How about in the second inning that proved to be the difference maker in the game?

Walker Buehler was charged for six runs. He should not have been charged for six runs. His defense flat out failed him.

Buehler went five innings for the Dodgers. He could and should have gone six. He gave them everything they could have asked for. It didn’t matter.

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It all started with this play. Freddie Freeman fielded a groundball and threw it to second base. Manny Machado ran on the freaking grass and got hit by the throw, sending it into left field.

The fact that this is even allowed is ridiculous. But it’s a legal play. By rule, Machado is somehow allowed to run wherever he wants on the way to second base. Since it’s a forceout and not a tag play, he can legally do this. I can’t stand him, but this is a genius move on his part. He’s a veteran who knows the game and what to do in big moments.

Do you think a Dodgers player would attempt this? Absolutely not. A Dodgers player would have just slid into second base and a double play would have been turned.

Instead of one out and a runner on first, the Padres had runners on the corners with zero outs.

The next play is what might haunt me all offseason. Xander Bogaerts hit a weak grounder to Miguel Rojas at shortstop. A double-play opportunity he’s probably made 1,000 times in his career. As routine as it can get.

Instead of flipping it to Lux, who would have easily turned two, Rojas for some idiotic reason decided to play hero and run to second himself. As you can see, the runner isn’t even IN THE PICTURE. It wasn’t going to be close…. but Rojas made it close. To make matters worse, the runner was also safe at first.

Instead of a tie game and nobody on base with two outs, the inning continued.

I mean this is just inexcusable from Rojas. I don’t know what he was thinking here. I mean this guy is known for his glove. He’s in there BECAUSE of his glove. The fact that he made this bone-headed decision is so baffling to me. It’s not like it was Mookie Betts who made the play, or Tommy Edman, or Chris Taylor. It was the guy who is as sure of a fielder as they come.

It lost the Dodgers the game.

The Padres took advantage with the extra outs the Dodgers gave them and made them pay. Overall, San Diego finished the inning by scoring six runs. They didn’t need to score a run the rest of the game.

To add salt to the wound, the Padres weren’t even making hard contact. They were just putting the ball in the right places at the right time. I know looking at expected numbers doesn’t solve anything, but look at the expected numbers on all the Padres baserunners for that inning.

Single: .350 xBA

Fielders Choice: .160 xBA

Fielders Choice: .070 xBA

Double: .320 xBA

Single: .190 xBA

Single: .120 xBA

You seriously couldn’t get better luck……

Again, they got all those chances because the Dodgers didn’t turn two. They were essentially given six outs that inning. To their credit, they took advantage.

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Throw that horrific defensive inning out of the equation, the Dodgers still somehow had a chance in this game. With the game already 6-1 after the second inning I had completely given up hope. Petco Park sounded like it was ready to explode and the Padres had all the momentum. I had my sights set on Game 4. Apparently the rest of the team did, as well.

Well, almost everyone on the team.

The Dodgers managed to put together a little rally that was capped off with a grand slam from Teoscar Hernandez. Just like that, the Dodgers trailed by only ONE RUN in the third inning. They were right back in it. They had all the momentum. They had a chance to win the game.

At least, we thought that…..

After Hernandez’s grand slam, the Dodgers went HITLESS until the eighth inning. It wasn’t until a Freddie Freeman single with two outs that they recorded their next hit. Or hell, even got a baserunner. As a team, they went 0-for-16 at the plate following the grand slam.

How? HOW is that even possible?

Your teammate just hit a MASSIVE grand slam to get you back in the game and you completely forget how to hit? HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN?

Not only that, the at bats were straight up disgusting. Guys weren’t working counts. They weren’t taking pitches. They were swinging at pitches outside of the zone. They were swinging early in the count. When they DID make contact, it was a weakly hit grounder to the infield.

Shohei Ohtani flew out to deep center field at one point. I think that may have been the only at bat where a Dodgers player actually did something.

We’ve seen this for three consecutive postseasons now. For whatever reason, the offense goes ice cold. It doesn’t matter who they have in the lineup. It doesn’t matter who they are facing on the mound. The bats just freeze and are nowhere to be found.

Game 1 was great, yes. They scored seven runs. We thoughts things had changed. Nope, turns out they just blue balled us badly.

If you take out that grand slam from Teoscar, the Dodgers have scored 3 runs over their last 20 innings. The offense for whatever reason just can’t deliver when the lights are the brightest. I don’t know what it is, but they all look like a deer in headlights.

Max Muncy? Sure, he had an absolutely meaningless homer down by 20 runs in Game 2. He was swinging at pitches that were almost out of the TV frame. He’s done absolutely nothing this series.

Will Smith? The guy that was given a 10-year contract? He’s hitless this series.

Freddie Freeman is playing on a bad ankle, I’ll at least give him that, but he has a .546 OPS this series. Not ideal from your No. 3 hitter.

Gavin Lux has a .523 OPS. Tommy Edman has a .600 OPS. Miguel Rojas has a .500 OPS. A reminder that the league average OPS is around .700.

Shohei Ohtani? Remember the guy who had that awesome 3-run homer in Game 1 and we thought he’d be the savior? Where has he been? Going back to the middle of Game 1, he’s 1-for-10 with six strikeouts. His lone hit was a broken bat bloop single. The guy we thought was going to carry us has gone missing these last two games.

Well, at least Mookie Betts showed up last night!

With the exception of Teoscar Hernandez, nobody is freaking hitting! It’s just….. I don’t even know. I don’t have words for it. I can’t understand WHY this is happening for the third consecutive year.

As you can tell, I’m very pissed off. But there is a silver lining here. The Dodgers haven’t been eliminated yet. They still have one game to spare. All they gotta do to win this series is win two games. That seems doable, right? The team with the best record in baseball this season just has to win two in a row?

The Dodgers haven’t won two games in a row in the postseason since 2021. I’ll believe it when I see it.

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