Los Angeles — The Tigers scored twice in the first inning and had a chance to put the Dodgers in a deep hole and didn’t do it — which, as they’ve learned in this series, is fatal.
They left the bases loaded in the first and stranded runners at the corners in the second. Bad medicine.
The Dodgers broke a 2-2 tie in the fifth inning and completed the three-game sweep of the Tigers with a 7-3 victory Saturday night.
It was the Dodger Stadium debut of Japanese rookie Roki Sasaki and he didn’t get out of the second inning. The right-hander has electric stuff but he’s still raw and the Tigers exploited his inability to throw the ball over the plate.
He needed 41 pitches to get through the first inning and ended up walking four before he was pulled with two outs in the second inning.
A swinging-bunt single by Manny Margot scored one run in the first and a bases-loaded walk to Trey Sweeney scored another before Sasaki got Jake Rogers to ground out and end the inning.
In the second, Sasaki walked Ryan Kreidler and Spencer Torkelson and was pulled at 61 pitches. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts summoned lefty Jack Dreyer to face lefty-swinging Kerry Carpenter and Dreyer struck him out.
The Tigers were 0 for 15 with runners in scoring position on Thursday, 2 for 9 Friday and 2 for 8 Saturday.
Meanwhile, Tigers starter Reese Olson was dealing with his own command issues, specifically, he struggled to locate one of his primary weapons — the change-up.
Freddie Freeman slugged his second homer in two games in the first inning, launching a mislocated four-seam fastball 418 feet to the back of the right-field bleachers.
BOX SCORE: Dodgers 7, Tigers 3
Catcher Jake Rogers set up outside for the pitch and Olson yanked it down and in, right in the lefty-swinging Freeman’s wheelhouse.
Olson then labored through a 26-pitch second inning, allowing an RBI double to Michael Conforto, who drilled a 1-2 change-up that stayed in the middle of the plate.
He was at 43 pitches once he got out of the second and seemed to find a groove, leaning heavily on his sinker and slider. He set down eight straight before walking Conforto to lead off the fifth.
Olson got the next two hitters to ground out, moving Conforto to third. With lefty-swinging Shohei Ohtani coming up, manager AJ Hinch waggled four fingers — intentional walk — setting up a right-on-right matchup with Silver Slugger-winner Teoscar Hernandez.
How’s that for a pick-your-poison moment? Ohtani last year against right-handed pitching had a 1.128 OPS. Hernandez against right-handed pitching: .808 OPS.
Olson made the situation more dangerous by falling behind 2-1. Hernandez then squared up a slider middle-in. Hernandez shot it inside the bag at third base and off the glove of diving third baseman Zach McKinstry.
Conforto jogged home. Ohtani sped all the around from first — 4-2 Dodgers.
The Dodgers then flexed their muscles and pulled away. Will Smith homered off lefty reliever Brant Hurter. Tommy Edman sent the first pitch from reliever Kenta Maeda into the right-center field seats.
They hit three homers in each of the three games against the Tigers.
Once Sasaki got the early hook, Roberts had little choice but to give the Tigers a taste of the Dodgers’ version of pitching chaos. Over the final seven innings, Tigers bats were subdued by a parade of high-end relievers — after Dreyer, it was righty Ben Casparius, lefty Anthony Banda, righty Luis Garcia, righty Kirby Yates and righty Blake Treinen.
The only damage came against Garcia, who gave up a triple to Rogers and a ball that Hernandez ran down at the wall in right-center but lost after he hit the wall.
Rogers scored when Garcia didn’t cover first on a grounder to first base by Zach McKinstry.
@cmccosky
