Long ball plagues Madison Bumgarner in D-backs’ loss to Dodgers

PHOENIX — The Arizona Diamondbacks have been smacking home runs in 2022 as the primary fuel of their offense, entering play on Friday fifth in MLB.

The Los Angeles Dodgers, though, would give the D-backs a taste of their own medicine on Friday in a 6-4 loss at Chase Field.

Los Angeles hit three homers off D-backs starter Madison Bumgarner and that was the difference.

Arizona had a chance to rally in the bottom of the ninth when Ketel Marte represented the tying run at the plate with runners on second and third and no outs after Josh Rojas’ RBI double cut the deficit to three. But Marte popped out, Christian Walker grounded out to score Cooper Hummel and David Peralta’s own groundout ended the game.

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

Slightly better execution from either side of it for the D-backs could have stolen a win. Arizona’s bats were 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position and Bumgarner’s five earned runs were a season high.

In Bumgarner’s first eight starts of the season, he had allowed just four home runs. But after giving up a pair to the Chicago Cubs in his last outing, it was three dingers for the Dodgers that were responsible for all five runs he gave up.

Edwin Rios’ three-run shot in the top of the second inning was followed by a Mookie Betts solo homer before Rios could even sit down in the dugout. Another long ball of the solo variety from Trea Turner in the sixth produced that fifth run.

That’s now nine earned runs for Bumgarner in his previous two games after a total of six in those aforementioned opening eight appearances.

The D-backs’ offense had its second straight underwhelming night that featured some loud outs.

Dodgers starter Ryan Pepiot, rated as Los Angeles’ sixth-best prospect, has struggled with his command through his first two career starts. He walked eight batters in those 7.0 innings and gave up three more to the D-backs with three hits plus a hit batter.

Despite those baserunners getting on across Pepiot’s 4.1 innings, Arizona only came out of it with one run.

The D-backs’ lone run off Pepiot was with the bases loaded and one out in the fifth when Rojas hit a sac fly, and the third out in that situation was Marte. The D-backs star had four runners left on base on Thursday and another six for Friday’s loss. A few of those scenarios featured that signature pop Marte has in his bat but that can only mean so much.

RBI singles for Turner and Rojas in the seventh accounted for the game’s other two runs.

Friday marked the D-backs’ sixth straight loss to the Dodgers. Arizona won two out of three in the first series between the two teams before being swept across four games in Los Angeles and now have dropped the first two of four games hosting the Dodgers.

Rojas had three RBIs to go with three hits and rookie catcher Jose Herrera also had three hits, a new career high for him.

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