The Los Angeles Dodgers acquired Tarik Skubal ahead of the trade deadline last weekend. Tuesday night, he made his debut against the Cubs at what turned out to be the worst possible moment for the struggling Dodgers.
The Cubs won 5-1. Los Angeles, now 69-45, has lost five straight games, a season-high. Chicago entered the night at 64-49 and holding the top National League wild-card spot, according to a report by CBS Sports.
Skubal did not pitch poorly. He gave up two earned runs on four hits over six innings, striking out six and walking two. He generated 13 whiffs on 43 swings, escaped a jam in the third inning, and allowed just two hard-hit balls all night. But he got almost nothing from the offense behind him. Kyle Tucker homered in the second inning. That was the only run the Dodgers produced while Skubal was on the mound.
The first run against Skubal came on a solo home run from Dansby Swanson in the sixth inning, his 17th of the year. The second run was harder to pin on the pitcher. After striking out Pete Crow-Armstrong to open the sixth, Skubal walked Seiya Suzuki. Alex Bregman then hit a deep fly to right field that Tucker missed. It was not ruled an error. With runners on second and third, Skubal got two straight ground balls. One resulted in Suzuki being thrown out at home. The next one bounced unusually high, went over Skubal's head, stayed up long enough to become an infield hit, and plated the go-ahead run.
Cubs starter Javier Assad navigated traffic several times but benefited from two double plays turned by his infield and otherwise pitched well. Chicago's bullpen held the Dodgers in check late in the game, including a clean eighth inning from newly acquired Ryan Zeferjahn.
The Cubs extended the lead in the seventh. Swanson doubled, Crow-Armstrong singled him in, then stole second before Suzuki drove him home. Nico Hoerner added a home run in the eighth to push the final score to 5-1.
Skubal's first start in a Dodgers uniform had moments worth building on. He froze Crow-Armstrong for a strikeout on the very first batter he faced as a Dodger. His two earned runs came with some bad luck mixed in. The hard-contact numbers were mostly in his favor. But a debut loss and a fifth straight defeat leave the Dodgers in a difficult stretch heading into the rest of the week.
