Dodgers shut out by Patrick Corbin and Nationals bullpen

LOS ANGELES — If Rich Hill could hit the snooze alarm on his starts, he might be better off.

Continuing an early-season trend, Hill surrendered a three-run home run to Howie Kendrick in the first inning Thursday night. The Washington Nationals coasted behind Patrick Corbin from there, handing the Dodgers a 6-0 loss.

The loss snapped a 10-game winning streak at Dodger Stadium, where the home team is 15-5 this season.

Hill has given up a home run in the first inning of each of his three starts this season – to Melky Cabrera of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Manny Machado in San Diego and now Kendrick. Ten of the 11 runs Hill has given up this season have scored in either the first or second inning of his starts.

“Just gotta not do that. That would be nice,” Hill said with a sardonic chuckle. “I don’t think there is any explanation for that. Again, it’s coming out and continuing to attack hitters.

“It’s executing pitches and not leaving quality pitches in counts where I’m ahead or we’re ahead and leaving breaking balls down the middle.”

Hill had a similar problem in 2017. He gave up 18 first-inning runs in his 25 regular-season starts that year for a 6.12 ERA. His ERA after the first inning in 2017 was 2.68.

“I know if you look back the last couple years there was something like that and we sort of changed his (pre-game) regimen to sort of combat that,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I still think his intensity is always there, his intent.”

In his three first innings this year, opposing batters have hit .400 (6 for 15) against Hill. During the rest of his starts, they are batting .256 (11 for 43). Thursday’s start fell into that pattern.

Adam Eaton led off the first with a double to right and Hill hit Anthony Rendon with a pitch to bring up Kendrick with one out.

The last time the former Dodger and Angel faced the Dodgers was almost a year ago – May 19 – and he ruptured the Achilles tendon in his right foot going back on a fly ball in left field. Back in the Nationals’ lineup this season, he clubbed a 2-and-2 curveball from Hill into the left field pavilion.

That was the extent of the offense for most of the game. Hill settled down and allowed only three more hits in his five innings while striking out five. It stayed 3-0 into the eighth inning.

“Getting away from my gameplan a bit is frustrating as far as having a certain style of pitching,” Hill said. “In my opinion, the curveball can stand on its own. What I mean by that is it’s not something you have to feed into a scouting report. It’s plenty good of a pitch for me to use over and over again. We started doing that more and more and I was able to keep us in the ballgame.”

But after scoring nine runs in each of their previous two games, the Dodgers were unable to dent Corbin. They had six baserunners in the first five innings against the former Diamondback but only one of those reached with a hit – David Freese’s infield single in the fourth.

“It was tough to get a rhythm offensively,” said Dodgers catcher Russell Martin, who had two of their six hits in the game. “Corbin kept making pitches. He got us to expand the zone and was really disguising that slider behind his fastball.”

The Dodgers loaded the bases with one out that inning but Chris Taylor bounced into an inning-ending double play. They didn’t get another runner past first base against Corbin, who went seven innings, allowing three hits and walking four while striking out eight by relying on his fastball-slider combination.

“You’ve got to give credit tonight to Corbin. We’ve seen him a lot and he’s had his way with a lot of our hitters,” Roberts said of Corbin, who faced the Dodgers 20 times as a Diamondback. “That slider – we did not see it well.

“Great pitchers, when they’re on their game, they throw that ball out of the same window. It looks like a fastball. You’ve still got to be aggressive. But he did a good job of disguising both pitches. When he’s good, that’s what he does.”

Two unearned runs in the eighth and another in the ninth made it easy for the Nationals, who came into the game with the worst bullpen in the majors this season (an MLB-high 6.41 ERA and .282 average against heading into Thursday).

Dave Roberts on Rich Hill's night, the #Dodgers getting behind early and not capitalizing with RISP. pic.twitter.com/FiGUheKHrZ

— SportsNet LA (@SportsNetLA) May 10, 2019

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