Dodgers edge Rangers in pitchers’ duel as Tyler Glasnow leaves with leg cramps
ARLINGTON, Texas — Can anyone in baseball turn too much pitching into not enough pitching faster than the Dodgers?
Their moves this winter prompted MLB Network to produce graphics of 10-deep starting rotations and overflowing bullpens. A month into the season, the Dodgers have parts scattered all around like a low-end body shop.
Starters Blake Snell, Clayton Kershaw and Tony Gonsolin are on the Injured List in varying states of repair. Reliever Blake Treinen just headed there this weekend with an unknown prognosis for his return.
And now, Tyler Glasnow came out of his start with lower leg cramps one pitch into the fifth inning Sunday. The game was scoreless when Glasnow left the scene and stayed that way until the Dodgers scratched out a run in the eighth inning to beat the Texas Rangers 1-0.
The Dodgers took two of three in the series, pitting baseball’s past two World Series champions, with each of their wins ending on ‘walkoff replays.’ Friday night, both teams stood around waiting for the fair-or-foul ruling on a ground ball Max Muncy turned into a game-ending double play. Sunday, it was another slow-motion celebration after a caught-stealing call was confirmed on replay.
When they cleared the field and headed to the clubhouse, they found a hydrated Glasnow feeling better and expected to make his next start on Sunday.
“It’s fine now,” Glasnow said after the game. “I’m hydrated. I’m not really sure what it is. But I feel fine now.”
The Dodgers can never be sure with their pitching staff.
For all the offseason exclamations over their largesse, they have already used minor-leaguers Landon Knack, Justin Wrobleski and Bobby Miller for spot starts this season and are planning a bullpen game in Chicago on Wednesday. An extended absence for the oft-injured Glasnow might have prompted an early return for Gonsolin, who is currently scheduled to make one more rehab start in Triple-A.
Glasnow allowed baserunners in each of the first three innings Sunday but took a shutout into the fourth inning. While striking out the side, he appeared to have issues with his right leg, prompting a visit from Dodgers manager Dave Roberts and head trainer Thomas Albert. Glasnow stayed in to finish off the fourth inning with his sixth strikeout of the game.
“I just saw a lot of shaking of both legs, trying to shake something out,” Roberts said. “A lot of time with the lower half, you don’t want it to bleed into the arm and affect that. He just seemed uncomfortable, trying to see his way through it. I talked to him after the fourth inning down below, we just said we’d keep an eye on it.”
Glasnow threw just one pitch, a 94-mph fastball for a called first strike to Jake Burger, to start the fifth inning before Roberts and Albert came back out to the mound. This time, Glasnow left the game.
Glasnow also left a start last April with cramping in his right calf. He didn’t miss a start as a result.
“We expect him to make his next start on Sunday at home,” Roberts said after the game. “I remember last year it happened right around this time. I don’t know if it was a combination of pickle juice and water or whatever it is but it didn’t show its head after that one in Toronto. So hopefully this is a one-time occurrence.”
Glasnow said the cramping has happened to him “sporadically” despite his doing “all the hydration stuff” to prevent it.
“I’m not really sure why it keeps happening. It hasn’t happened in a while,” he said.
“It was kind of the same. Ankles, calves, feet. Both sides. After a while, it just gets to the point where it’s fully locked up. I’m not sure why.”
This is the second time in four starts this season that Glasnow left the game early. He came out in the third inning of his start in Philadelphia, unsettled by the rainy conditions and soggy mound.
“I haven’t thrown many innings my first few starts,” said Glasnow, who has completed 17 innings in four starts. “But they (the bullpen) have come in and picked me up and picked the team up. Obviously, when you have to leave a game early, it’s not a good feeling, just to have the bullpen throw so many innings this year. But like I said, they’ve done an amazing job, and they helped me out today a lot. They’ve helped the whole team out.”
The Dodgers’ bullpen did answer the call Sunday and kept a scoreless duel with Rangers starter Tyler Mahle going.
Mahle allowed just two hits and three walks in his seven scoreless innings. The Dodgers put runners in scoring position with two outs in the third inning, on a leadoff double by Teoscar Hernandez in the fourth, and with two outs again in the seventh, but came up empty each time.
They put the winning rally together in the eighth when Will Smith pinch-hit for Austin Barnes and led off with a single. Shohei Ohtani followed with a walk to push Smith into scoring position. Smith tagged and went to third on Mookie Betts’ fly to right, then tagged and came home to score when Freddie Freeman lofted a sacrifice fly to left field.
“It was just a great manufactured inning,” Roberts said.
The relief relay of Luis Garcia, Anthony Banda, Ben Casparius, Jack Dreyer, Evan Phillips and Tanner Scott allowed just two hits over the final five innings. The rookie combo of Casparius and Dreyer combined for seven of the outs and have emerged as key pieces of the bullpen early in the season.
“You try and give younger players a softer landing. But they’ve just earned their respect from me, from their teammates, from their coaches to pitch in higher-leverage,” Roberts said. “So right now I just consider those guys like everybody else in the bullpen.”