ST. LOUIS -- A.J. Ellis was standing less than 10 feet from where Matt Kemp had stood eight months earlier, bristling with frustration and delivering a measured, yet pointed message with strikingly similar chords.
Kemp spoke out after the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Game 3 loss in the National League Division Series here last October, calling umpire Dale Scott’s strike zone “terrible.” Now, Kemp is gone but the simmering frustration goes on for the Dodgers when they reach the wide banks of the Mississippi.
Ellis, usually an even-keeled sort, blasted umpire Mike Winters’ strike zone in the wake of Friday night’s 3-0 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals, a game in which Ellis was ejected in the seventh inning.
Either the Cardinals get all the calls in their stadium, John Lackey is the darling of umpires everywhere, or the Dodgers find it exceptionally frustrating to play in St. Louis nowadays. Or, could it be a little bit of each? The Dodgers certainly weren't in a magnanimous mood after they slipped out of first place for the first time since April 15.
Lackey, aging but still feisty, frustrated the Dodgers and, once again, they couldn’t contain their frustration with the umpire as it was happening. Dodgers manager Don Mattingly was tossed by Winters a half-inning earlier, after Andre Ethier was rung up at a key moment on a pitch that appeared to be a bit below the knees.
What set Ellis over the top was that, after he complained about a pitch as Dodgers reliever Paco Rodriguez was walking Matt Carpenter, Winters told him it was about his “presentation” of the ball. Ellis has typically not ranked highly in the art of pitch framing, one of the emerging fields of study in baseball.
“It’s almost like he was admitting it was a strike and then putting the onus on me,” Ellis said. “There are people on blogs and websites who can critique my framing, but I’m not going to take that from an umpire, because it’s not their job to do that. It’s their job to make a call on what comes through a strike zone.”
Winters, through a Cardinals spokesman, declined to discuss the confrontation, calling it “about balls and strikes.” Ellis suggested Major League Baseball listen to the exchange since Winters was miked up as part of the broadcast on MLB Network.
The Dodgers felt like Winters’ strike zone was all over the place, which is a pretty good description of their offense right now. They averaged barely a run per game over an eight-game stretch that ended Sunday, then broke out for 16 runs in three games against the Atlanta Braves, then came here and fell back into the same old rut. Only three Dodgers got as far as second base Friday night.
“I don’t know if we’ve gotten spoiled from earlier on, when we were able to put up runs, runs, runs,” Mattingly said. “I don’t think any of us expected that to continue, but I do think we’ve hit a little bit of a lull.”
The proliferation of runs might have been more surprising than the lull considering the Dodgers are saddled with injuries. They’ve been without their starting corner outfielders, Yasiel Puig and Carl Crawford, their hot-hitting catcher, Yasmani Grandal, and one of their key hitters off the bench, Scott Van Slyke. That doesn’t even mention the pitching injuries, which include two-fifths of the starting rotation and two setup relievers.
“We are who we are right now,” Mattingly said. “I think that’s just how we have to win with our personnel right now.”
It’s hard to imagine the Dodgers can rely on Mike Bolsinger to continue to be this good. He went into Friday’s start with a 0.71 ERA in his first four starts of the season, numbers that put him up there with some Dodgers greats -- Fernando Valenzuela and Don Sutton -- for getting out of the gate on the run. Friday, there were some signs that the magical pixie dust is wearing off. Bolsinger fought his way through six innings, but without his good breaking ball, he was probably fortunate to allow only two runs considering St. Louis had 10 baserunners against him.
“It could have turned out really ugly. I remember looking up at the board and they had left six guys on base,” Bolsinger said. “I definitely pride myself in that and, hopefully, just keep this thing rolling.”
Considering the Dodgers haven’t scored a run in a road game since May 10 -- that spans only four games -- it’s probably more about getting this thing rolling.