LOS ANGELES — The schedule provided a nice runway for the Los Angeles Dodgers this weekend, a chance for a road-weary and pitching-thin team to cruise into the All-Star break with three home games against the worst team in baseball, except the Arizona Diamondbacks refused to play their usual role of pushovers Friday night.
Errors by a pair of usually sure-handed corner infielders paved the way for two unearned runs, and the Dodgers walked two batters with the bases loaded in the ninth inning of a 5-2 loss to the Diamondbacks before 49,215 in Chavez Ravine.
The Dodgers (54-35) won their first seven games against the Diamondbacks (26-64) this season, outscoring them 40-17, and Friday night’s game began on a promising note.
David Price, starting the ninth planned bullpen game of the season, threw a season-high three innings and 51 pitches, blanking Arizona on four hits, striking out three and walking one, before yielding to left-hander Darien Nunez to start the fourth.
Price escaped a bases-loaded, two-out jam in the first by striking out Asdrubal Cabrera with a 95-mph fastball. He wiggled out of a two-on, one-out jam in the third by striking out David Peralta with an 89-mph changeup and getting Cabrera to ground out to second.
The Dodgers took a 1-0 lead in the third when AJ Pollock led off with a homer to center field, his 10th of the season.
But the Diamondbacks went ahead 2-1 in the fifth when third baseman Justin Turner failed to glove Nick Ahmed’s leadoff chopper for an error and Eduardo Escobar poked a 95-mph up-and-away fastball from Nunez for a two-run homer to right, the ball traveling 335 feet and landing in the first row near the foul pole.
Arizona pushed the lead to 3-1 in the seventh, Josh Rojas starting the rally with a one-out walk off Joe Kelly. Escobar hit a soft liner to the right of Max Muncy that Dodgers the first baseman failed to glove with a backhand stab, his first error in 65 games — 51 of them starts — at the position this season.
Christian Walker was hit by a pitch to load the bases, and Rojas scored on Peralta’s infield single, a chopper behind the second-base bag.
The Dodgers pulled to within 3-2 in the bottom of the seventh when Pollock doubled to left-center, took third on pinch-hitter Zach McKinstry’s grounder to second and scored on Mookie Betts’ grounder to third.
But the Diamondbacks extended the lead to 5-2 in the ninth when Dodgers reliever Edwin Uceta gave up a single and three walks — the last to Daulton Varsho with the bases loaded — and Jake Reed walked Josh Reddick to force in another run.
