Diamondbacks rally late, but come up short against Dodgers again

A little more than a quarter of the way into the season, the Diamondbacks are one of baseball’s surprise teams, a club coming off a 110-loss disaster of a year that is now hanging around the .500 mark. This has been possible, in no small part, because of the performance of their starting rotation.

But a couple of things became increasingly clear on Friday night at Chase Field: The starters are in the midst of a funk. And the Los Angeles Dodgers have had a lot to do with it.

Left-hander Madison Bumgarner allowed five runs in six innings against the Dodgers on Friday, the latest Diamondbacks starter to get knocked around over the past two weeks. He was touched for back-to-back home runs in the second inning, first a three-run shot by Edwin Rios, then a solo blast by Mookie Betts. The Dodgers' Trea Turner hit their third homer off Bumgarner in the sixth.

SCOREBOARD | STANDINGS | INJURIES

The Diamondbacks lost both Daulton Varsho (sore right shoulder) and Jordan Luplow (sore left foot) on Friday, but manager Torey Lovullo was hopeful that both players managed to avoid serious injury. Both had X-rays that came back negative, Lovullo said.

Varsho, who was serving as the designated hitter, was hit on what appeared to be his right shoulder blade by a 95 mph fastball from Dodgers right-hander Ryan Pepiot in the first inning. He remained in the game, taking his second at-bat in the third inning but exited when his turn came back around in the fifth.

Luplow replaced Varsho as a pinch hitter in the fifth but fouled a ball off his left foot during a plate appearance that ended with him drawing a base on balls. Lovullo said he noticed Luplow having trouble running the bases and didn’t want to take any chances.

That said, Lovullo said the club was optimistic about the limited nature of the injuries.

“We’re keeping our fingers crossed,” he said. “We feel very good about it at this point.”

Lovullo said Varsho was scheduled to get additional imaging performed on Saturday “just to make sure.”

The Diamondbacks rotation was one of the better groups in baseball after the first month or so of the season, with Bumgarner, right-hander Zac Gallen and right-hander Merrill Kelly each sporting ERAs under 2.00. Right-handers Zac Davies and Humberto Castellanos had also pitched well, routinely keeping the Diamondbacks in games while working into the middle innings.

The group was pitching at a level that would have been difficult to maintain — and appears to be going through the sort of slump that happens to every staff as a season progresses. The question will be how much longer until the starters can get themselves back on track.

Through their first 35 games, the Diamondbacks’ rotation had a 2.51 ERA. Over the past 12, they have posted an 8.48 ERA, with 49 earned runs allowed in 52 innings.

Much of that damage has come at the hands of the Dodgers, who have won six consecutive games against the Diamondbacks, starting with four wins in three days at Dodger Stadium last week.

In those six games, the Dodgers have scored 33 runs in 26 2/3 innings against Diamondbacks starters. That includes eight runs in 11 innings in two starts by Bumgarner. Humberto Castellanos, Zach Davies, Merrill Kelly and Tyler Gilbert have started the other four — none of them faring particularly well. No starter has been able to register a quality start in that span.

On Friday, things unraveled for Bumgarner in the second. A half-inning after Varsho was hit, Bumgarner threw five consecutive pitches in on the Dodgers’ Justin Turner, who led off the top of the second. The fifth pitch, on a 3-1 count, actually went behind Turner, barely missing him.

Bumgarner was not available for comment, but Lovullo said he did not believe Bumgarner was trying to even the score for Varsho.

“Those pitches were just getting away from Bum,” Lovullo said. “We were trying to cut him in. He’s on the plate and we’re just trying to cut him in.”

Later in the inning, after Hanser Alberto dumped a two-out single into center, Rios turned on a 1-2 cutter that was up and out of the strike zone, managing not only to hit it hard (96 mph) and high (35 degree launch angle) but also keep it fair, dropping it into the visitors’ bullpen in right field for a three-run shot.

“He’s an up ball hitter,” Lovullo said. “They were trying to go away. It was just a misfire. If you watch it, Bum was supposed to be throwing here (inside) and it was just right in Rios’ wheelhouse.”

The Dodgers added runs in the later innings, including picking up a run in the seventh, an inning in which Diamondbacks right fielder Pavin Smith dropped a routine pop fly. The Diamondbacks, trailing 6-2 entering the bottom of the ninth, scored twice off Dodgers closer Craig Kimbrel. They proceeded to have three at-bats — the heart of their order — with the tying run at the plate, but Kimbrel got Ketel Marte (pop out), Christian Walker (ground out) and David Peralta (ground out) in order to end it.

“I think we just dug ourselves too big of a hole early,” Lovullo said. “We fought back and were making some noise there in the ninth inning. We had the right guys in the right spot with runners out there and we just couldn’t get that big hit.”

Reach Piecoro at (602) 444-8680 or nick.piecoro@arizonarepublic.com. Follow him on Twitter @nickpiecoro.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Los Angeles Dodgers' home runs, pitching too much for Arizona Diamondbacks