Back in the spring, Dave Roberts didn’t temper expectations when asked about his early impression of Tanner Scott.
“He’s like an assassin,” the Dodgers manager said then of the club’s $72 million offseason signing. “The fear in the batter’s box against him is certainly real.”
Lately, however, the only real killing Scott has done has been to the Dodgers’ chances.
And on Monday night, he and the team suffered through another fatal example, the de facto closer giving up two runs in the top of the 10th inning in a 4-3 loss to the New York Mets.
Instead of overpowering hitters with his upper-90s mph heater, and putting them away with a wicked power slider, Scott fell victim to a familiar pattern in what was his second losing decision of the season (to go along with five blown saves in 15 opportunities):
He missed locations with his fastball. He yielded hard contact without generating enough swing and miss. And that fear Roberts expected back in the spring was present in only one place, emanating through a fan base nervous to watch him pitch.
“Missed locations, especially down in the zone against hitters that I’m supposed to be in different spots,” Scott said about his struggles. “I’m just not hitting my locations, and it’s costing us.”
The cost Monday felt particularly stiff, as Scott’s latest blunder squandered a strong six-inning, two-run start from pitcher Dustin May and some late-game heroics from slugger Shohei Ohtani — who erased the team’s 2-0 deficit with a towering home run in the seventh and tying sacrifice fly in the ninth.
“We do a good job of being resilient,” Roberts said, “of coming back.”
But then Scott was summoned from the bullpen, and everything went sideways.
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani hits a 424-foot home run to right field during the seventh inning Monday. (Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)
Francisco Alvarez got a center-cut fastball to lead off the inning, and hammered an RBI double over Teoscar Hernández’s head in right field. Francisco Lindor singled him home in the next at-bat, swinging aggressively on a 2-and-0 fastball that was down the middle and at his knees.
“Yeah, it’s getting hit a lot,” Scott quipped when asked how he believes his signature fastball has been playing. “It sucks right now. Last year, I relied on it a lot. This year, it’s getting hit and I’m missing locations.”
Indeed, the highest-paid member of the Dodgers’ bullpen has the unit’s highest earned-run average, with Scott’s ballooning to 4.73 after Monday’s defeat. His last two weeks have been particularly brutal, with two losing decisions, three blown saves and 12 runs (10 earned) all coming in his last six innings.
