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Dodgers letting some prime opportunities slither away
- Updated: July 31, 2016
2:37 AM ET
LOS ANGELES — Most everybody is afraid of snakes. The Los Angeles Dodgers are more perplexed by them.
Forget about chasing the division-leading San Francisco Giants, since the Dodgers already would be a first-place team if they had been able to do some recent damage against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
At the start of play Saturday, the Dodgers had already shaved 5½ games off the National League West lead the Giants took into the All-Star break. But if the club had just managed to put the cellar-dwelling Diamondbacks in their place over the past two weeks, it would be the Giants now doing the chasing.
The Dodgers let another opportunity slip away when the Diamondbacks scored three times in the first two innings off starter Scott Kazmir and held on for a 4-2 victory Saturday at Dodger Stadium. That makes the Dodgers 2-3 against the Diamondbacks since the second half started July 15.
The Dodgers at least got the second half started right that day, when they buried Arizona under an avalanche of 13 runs in the desert. But a day later, closer Kenley Jansen could not protect a one-run lead as the Diamondbacks tied the game in the ninth inning and won it in the 12th. Arizona took the series when they snuffed out a late Dodgers rally and triumphed in another one-run affair in the July 17 finale.
Lefty Scott Kazmir suffered his first loss since May 9 as the Dodgers fell to the lowly Diamondbacks. AP Photo/Kelvin Kuo
The Giants lost all three of their games that weekend, meaning the Dodgers could have picked up two more games on the division leader to open their nine-game road trip at the start of the second half. All it would have taken was a little more production or their All-Star closer coming through one more time.
Manager Dave Roberts knows that games …
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