LOS ANGELES_The echoes of greatness were everywhere at Dodger Stadium on Saturday. The Los Angeles Dodgers staged a reunion for the 1988 World Series championship team, a sobering reminder that more than 10,000 days have passed since their last parade.
The Dodgers also put on an alumni game, and the introductions generously included those too old to play. There might have been no moment more touching than when Sandy Koufax, 82, extended his left arm so that Don Newcombe, 91, could hold onto it as the two men walked slowly onto the field.
Koufax, Newcombe, Tommy Lasorda, Fernando Valenzuela, Orel Hershiser ... the introductions went on, a flashback to the days when being a Dodger meant playing in the World Series, and winning it.
The Dodgers got back to the World Series last year, for the first time since 1988. They did not win it. Then this season started, and the flashback has been to the era when the team was best known as Dem Bums.
The alumni game was special. The varsity game was not. The Dodgers lost, again, on this night by a 5-3 score to the Cincinnati Reds.
They recently lost a series to the Miami Marlins, and another to the San Diego Padres. They have lost this series against the Reds. Those three teams are the only ones in the National League with records worse than the Dodgers.
The Dodgers are 16-23, in fourth place in the NL West. The major league teams with a better record include the Tampa Bay Rays, Oakland Athletics, Philadelphia Phillies and Detroit Tigers.
For the first five innings Saturday, the Dodgers paid homage to their championship forefathers from half a century ago: solid pitching, opportunistic hitting, even a couple of bunts.
Then the sixth inning happened. The bullpen blew up, again, and so did a strategic move.
Ross Stripling, filling in as a starter with Clayton Kershaw and Hyun-Jin Ryu on the disabled list, had held the Reds to one run over five innings. The Dodgers led 3-1 and Stripling was at 71 pitches.
In the bottom of the fifth, the Dodgers had two on and two out, with Stripling due up. If he were tiring, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts could have batted for him.
Roberts let Stripling bat. He struck out.
The right-handed Stripling then faced two left-handed batters in the top of the sixth _ one struck out, one singled _ before Roberts removed him. The Reds had a right-handed batter due up, and Stripling had made only eight pitches to those two left-handed batters.
The decision quickly went from curious to entirely regrettable.
J.T. Chargois turned that 3-1 lead into a 5-3 deficit in a hurry, facing five batters and giving up four hits. The big hit was a three-run home run from Scott Schebler, whom the Dodgers dumped in a trade that netted them three players no longer in the organization.
The Dodgers got a good start from Stripling, who struck out a career-high seven. They got a home run from Cody Bellinger, his first in 11 days.
And they hope to get Justin Turner and Logan Forsythe back from the disabled list as soon as Tuesday. Both played in a rehabilitation game at Class-A Rancho Cucamonga on Saturday.
The Dodgers cannot be accused of playing with a lack of emotion.
In the seventh inning, after he struck out, a frustrated Chris Taylor returned to the dugout and slammed his bat into the rack. Or, at least, he tried.
The bat hit the side of the rack and boomeranged back up, very nearly hitting Taylor in the face.
That kind of night. That kind of season.
