LOS ANGELES — Daniel Hudson removed his mitt and crouched near home plate. Around him, the Los Angeles Dodgers darted across the infield toward Austin Barnes, a pinch-hitter who smacked Hudson’s first-pitch fastball over the second baseman's head and to the outfield wall at Dodger Stadium for a two-out, walk-off double in the 10th inning Tuesday.
Yasmani Grandal bear-hugged Ross Stripling. A relief pitcher, Stripling pinch-ran for Grandal in the extra inning and dashed around the bases to score from first on Barnes’ double. Manager Clint Hurdle was waving at the umpires, requesting their attention and a replay review to see whether Stripling had touched first base. He had, and the 4-3 Dodgers win was over.
At his locker, a frustrated Hudson (0-2) answered for his mistakes. He didn’t make many, he said, just the two fastballs Grandal and Barnes tagged. Hudson has shown improvement over his past few outings, and he was nearly out of the woods in the 10th when Barnes struck.
“Things haven't been super smooth for me the first six weeks or so here,” Hudson said. “A combination of me making mistakes, and mistakes getting hammered or finding holes. It is what it is. It's baseball. One of these days, luck's got to turn around for all of us in here.”
The Pirates (14-19), held hitless by 20-year-old left-hander Julio Urias until the seventh inning, scored twice to tie the game in the seventh. Pinch-hitter John Jaso hammered a go-ahead solo shot off reliever Pedro Baez in the eighth, and the Dodgers (19-14) charged back with a run on Cody Bellinger’s one-out single off closer Tony Watson in the ninth, sending the game to extras.
Urias carried a no-hitter into the seventh before Andrew McCutchen drilled a leadoff double. He worked a career-high 6⅓ innings, allowing one run on one hit, two walks and five strikeouts.
Right-hander Ivan Nova pitched 6⅓ innings as well. He gave up two runs on seven hits.
“It was a tough night,” Nova said. “Felt like we had the win right there, and it got away from us.”
On Tuesday, the Pirates were in dire need of a stopper. They had lost two consecutive games, the minimum requirement for a losing streak, and yet their situation seemed far more severe. The front office’s best-laid plans and projections likely did not consider the roster could evolve in this way, with nine rookies on the active roster and three in the starting lineup.
The offseason outfield realignment, effectively scotched by Starling Marte and his 80-game suspension for a positive performance-enhancing drug test, was scrapped entirely Tuesday. Thirty-three games in, manager Clint Hurdle returned Gregory Polanco from left field to right, driving the Pirates and their analytical bent all the way back to 2016. It looks rather familiar now.
What was unfamiliar was Nova issuing a two-out walk in the first inning, his second walk this season. What occurred later was uncharted territory. Bellinger drew a leadoff walk in the fourth. For the first time in 18 starts for the Pirates, Nova allowed multiple walks in an outing.
Two batters later, Nova fell behind 2-0 on Grandal and left a two-seamer dead center in the strike zone. Grandal made no mistake, crushing a two-run home run to center field.
“At the end of the day, we’re talking about how much offense they’ve put up the last five games [44 runs], and he gives up two runs,” Hurdle said. “I thought [Nova] still pitched very effectively."
Understandably, Urias, born Aug. 12, 1996, is the youngest starting pitcher in the majors, so youthful and hip, in fact, he prefers his Twitter username, @theteenager7, remain unbound by reality. In two previous starts this season, Urias allowed one run over 10⅔ innings.
Urias proceeded with impeccable precision Tuesday. The only baserunners through the first six innings were via two walks and an error. The concern, however, was how long Dodgers manager Dave Roberts would permit his starter to go. Urias had thrown 88 and 90 pitches in his previous starts this season, and never in 17 major league starts had he pitched into the seventh.
It was on Urias’s 90th pitch McCutchen, the leadoff hitter in the seventh, ended talk of a no-hitter. McCutchen, who hit sharply into outs twice earlier in the game, roped a seventh-pitch fastball into the left-field corner for a ground-rule double. Left fielder Andrew Toles, chasing the baseball, stumbled into the wall and was injured. He was replaced by Enrique Hernandez.
After a Polanco fly out, Urias was lifted, and Roberts handed the ball to the bullpen. Pirates players said Urias’ mid-90s fastball had surprising late life, and he mixed pitches well.
“He's got some good stuff,” Hurdle said. “That was a strong performance by him.”
With two outs, Francisco Cervelli’s line drive to left whizzed past a dazed Hernandez, who took an awkward stab in its direction, and scored McCutchen. Pinch-hitter Max Moroff, a switch-hitter with five strikeouts in five previous major league at-bats, tied the game with a single to center.
In the seventh, Nova served up a leadoff double to pinch-hitter Chase Utley. After a sacrifice bunt, left-hander Felipe Rivero was asked to collect the final two outs. He lost the first batter, plunking Corey Seager with a two-strike off-speed pitch. He then fielded a come-backer and got the out at the plate. Rivero finished with a flair, following a 100 mph swinging strike with a knee-buckling slider for a called strike three.
“He’s our guy. He’s a swing-and-miss guy,” Hurdle said. “It was a good push for us right there by Felipe.”
After Jaso put the Pirates ahead in the eighth, hitting his second home run this season, Watson entered for the four-out save. He recorded the first two before the Dodgers struck. Seager singled. Polanco took a circuitous route to a Justin Turner’s fly ball, and it tipped off Polanco’s glove when he slid to attempt the catch. Polanco said he was playing no-doubles depth and was simply too far away from the ball to catch it, though he admitted his route was far from perfect.
Bellinger, the upstart rookie batting cleanup for the Dodgers bounced a seeing-eye single between two diving infielders and into right field to tie the score. Jordy Mercer executed an improbable, inning-ending double play, and the game plunged into extra innings.
There, the game belonged to Hudson, who signed with the Pirates as a free agent this winter. After the Grandal single and the Barnes walk-off double, Hudson’s ERA ticked upward to 7.53. The Pirates have put him in lower-stress situations recently as he tries to regain his form.
“We believe in him,” Hurdle said. “For us to be a good team and a good bullpen, we're going to need him to pitch those leverage innings. We've got to keep helping him work his way back.”
Stephen J. Nesbitt: snesbitt@post-gazette.com and Twitter @stephenjnesbitt.
First Published: May 10, 2017, 5:52 a.m.
