The Dodgers sat on a two-run lead in the ninth at loanDepot Park on Sunday and handed the ball to Tanner Scott for the four-out save. Three batters later the lead was gone, and one batter later Agustín Ramírez was trotting around the bases with a walk-off home run that finished a 6-4 Marlins win. I watched the whole thing unwind in real time and still cannot shake the sequence: an infield single Scott failed to cover, a perfect bunt, Javier Sanoja’s tying double down the left-field line, then Brock Stewart and a 407-foot punch to the gut.
Emmet Sheehan had given them six scoreless innings. Josue De Paula, two days removed from a Double-A call-up after Shohei Ohtani hit the injured list, had just mashed his first career hit—a three-run homer that left the bat at 108.2 mph and traveled 416 feet. That should have been the lasting image. Instead the bullpen spent the eighth and ninth giving Miami six runs and turning a potential clinching afternoon into another reminder that the soft spot on this roster has not healed.
The Eighth Was the Warning Shot Nobody Heeded
Edgardo Henriquez started the damage. Joe Mack singled, Mookie Betts and Miguel Rojas collided on a grounder, Esteury Ruiz beat out an infield hit, and Otto Lopez ripped a two-run single that cut the lead to 3-2. Scott came in and punched out Griffin Conine to strand the mess, which is exactly why Dave Roberts trusted him for the ninth. Half an inning later Mookie Betts stretched it back to 4-2 with a ground-rule double, and the math looked simple again.
It was not simple. Xavier Edwards reached when Scott never got to first base on a high flip from Freddie Freeman. Jakob Marsee dropped a bunt that he beat out clean. Sanoja’s double scored both of them and chased Scott. Stewart’s first pitch sequence ended with Ramírez launching a two-run shot to left-center. Game over. Marlins take the rubber match and the season series 4-2. Dodgers drop to 90-59 and lose for the second straight day after an eight-game win streak died Saturday.
Scott’s line reads 0.1 innings, three hits, three runs. It was only his fourth blown save in 26 chances, which looks tidy on a full-season sheet. Dig one layer deeper and you find the part that actually matters: this was the sixth time in his last eleven appearances he has allowed a run. The recent form is the form that shows up in October.
A Two-Time Champion Roster Still Has One Hole It Cannot Patch
I keep coming back to the same ledger. High-leverage arms keep arriving, keep getting paid, keep getting the ball with the game on the line, and keep watching the other dugout celebrate. Henriquez could not finish the eighth clean. Scott could not finish the ninth. Stewart could not record an out. Six runs across two innings against a Marlins club sitting at 74-76 is not a random blip. It is the same structural problem that has followed this team through every late-season stretch that matters.
De Paula’s debut power display deserved better. Sheehan’s six zeros deserved better. The clinch window that required a little help from Arizona or San Diego never even got the chance to open because the pen left the door unlocked. Attendance hit 32,003 for the finale and the weekend packed nearly 100,000 into the building; those fans saw a first-place club look suddenly fragile the moment the starter left.
The Dodgers still sit atop the NL West by a comfortable margin. The record still says contender. None of that erases the film from the final two frames. When a defending champion starts the late innings by praying the next arm does not implode, the ceiling drops whether anyone wants to admit it or not. Scott’s save percentage for the year still looks respectable. His last eleven outings tell a different story, and that story just cost them a series in Miami and another quiet Sunday when the magic number could have moved.
October does not hand out makeup dates for failed covers at first base or hanging fastballs to pinch-hitters. The bullpen just showed everyone exactly where the stress fractures live. Ramírez’s ball is still traveling in my head, and the only question left is how many more of those the Dodgers are willing to absorb before someone decides the current group is finished.
