Dodgers' bullpen falters in loss to Cardinals

The Dodgers’ bullpen is like your Wi-Fi coection. You only notice it when it doesn’t work.

The relief corps had quietly gone over a week (19 1/3 iings) without allowing an eaed run, stranding all 12 inherited ruers along the way, before Dave Roberts pulled Sunday’s starter Alex Wood after six strong iings.

A tie game didn’t stay that way. The St. Louis Cardinals scored three times in the seventh iing and avoided a sweep at Dodger Stadium with a 5-2 victory over the Dodgers Sunday night.

Wood tued in what has become his typically strong start at home, holding the Cardinals to just one run (a solo home run by Jeremy Hazelbaker) on three hits, a walk and a hit batter in his six iings.

Since being acquired from the Atlanta Braves last July, Wood has a 1.95 ERA and 0.87 WHIP when pitching at Dodger Stadium.

But he needed 92 pitches to get through those six iings Sunday and Roberts went to his bullpen to start the seventh.

Louis Coleman has been the Dodgers’ most reliable reliever for some time now. He hasn’t given up a hit in May, retiring 13 of the 14 batters he has faced (seven by strikeout with one walk). That included Aledmys Diaz to start the seventh iing.

But Diaz’s comebacker ricocheted off Coleman’s right hip before it was redirected to third baseman Justin Tuer who threw to first for the out. Coleman left the game.

With two left-handers coming up, he probably would have anyway. J.P. Howell came in to face Hazelbaker and got a ground ball back to the mound. Howell was only tall enough to deflect the ball, however, and this one went for a hit.

Howell retired Kolten Wong for the second out of the iing and Roberts brought Joe Blanton in to face pinch-hitter Brandon Moss. With first base open, the Dodgers intentionally walked Moss and the Cardinals brought Yadier Molina in to pinch-hit.

He dropped Blanton’s 1-and-0 slider down the left-field line for a two-run double to give the Cardinals the lead. Stephen Piscotty added an RBI single before Blanton could get out of the iing.

The Cardinals added another run off Blanton in the eighth after Randal Grichuk led off with a double.

Decisive as the bullpen’s latest failure was, the Dodgers’ offense was also culpable in wasting Wood’s performance.

The Dodgers managed just five hits in the game, two of them solo home runs by Corey Seager. It was the first multi-homer game of Seager’s career and part of a hot streak that has seen him go 15 for 35 (.429) with three doubles and four home runs in his past nine games.

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Seager’s second home run was the Dodgers’ only hit after Wood himself led off the fifth iing with a single, and he was their only ruer to advance past first base after the fourth iing.