Julio Urías struggles during his return from injured list, Dodgers fall to Royals

KANSAS CITY, Mo.  â€”  Julio Urías looked shell-shocked when a disastrous first inning finally ended Saturday night, the Dodgers left-hander walking slowly toward the third-base dugout in Kauffman Stadium as he pondered what the heck just happened during a blooper reel of a five-run Kansas City rally.

Making his first start in six weeks during his return from a left hamstring strain, Urías threw 27 pitches before recording his first out and needed 35 pitches to complete the inning. Three of the four hits he allowed were bloops that left Royals bats with exit velocities of 68.5 mph, 63.8 mph and 71.5 mph.

The Royals scored one run on a sacrifice fly … to second base. They scored another on a hit-and-run bloop single that dropped where second baseman Miguel Vargas would have been stationed had he not covered the bag. They scored two runs when Dodgers center fielder James Outman got a late jump on a bloop single to shallow center.

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Urías recovered — somewhat — to throw two scoreless innings but was pulled after the third, and the hole he dug was too deep for the Dodgers to overcome in a 6-4 loss to a team with the second-worst record (24-59) in baseball.

“There’s no sense hanging your head,� right fielder Mookie Betts said of the wacky first inning. “Sometimes it’s luck, sometimes it’s skill, sometimes it’s a combination of both. But there’s not much more Julio could have done, there’s nothing the defense could have done. I mean, it’s part of the game.�

Urías went 5-4 with a 4.39 ERA in his first 10 starts before missing 36 games because of the hamstring strain. His return was pushed back by a 1-hour, 25-minute rain delay, but when the skies cleared, it started raining bloop hits.

Maikel Garcia led off the bottom of the first with a double and took third on Bobby Witt Jr.’s bloop single to right. Salvador Perez’s hit-and-run bloop single to the vacated second-base spot scored a run. Nick Pratto walked to load the bases with a 12-pitch at-bat in which he fouled off six two-strike pitches.

“I think a little of both,� manager Dave Roberts said, when asked if the Pratto at-bat took something out of Urías physically or mentally. “That left on left, you want to get that guy out and be pitch-efficient, but to Pratto’s credit, he spoiled a lot of pitches.�

Edward Olivares hit a sacrifice fly that Vargas caught in shallow center, Witt tagging and scoring for a 2-0 lead. Matt Duffy was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Samad Taylor lofted a fly to medium right.

Betts caught the ball with his momentum going toward home and fired a strong one-hop throw that beat Perez, but Will Smith couldn’t apply his tag on time, as the Royals took a 3-0 lead. Drew Waters followed with a two-run bloop single to center for a 5-0 lead before Urías struck out Dairon Blanco to end the inning.

“It was a frustrating inning,� Roberts said. “I thought initially Julio came out good and just got victimized by a lot of soft contact.�

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It would be difficult to imagine a pitcher squeezing more hard luck into one inning, but Urías was more mad at himself than the baseball gods.

“I’ve just got to pitch better,� he said through an interpreter. “I felt good, but I didn’t do my job.�

What was Urías thinking as he walked off the mound after the first?

“That I pitched badly,� he said. “There were a lot of mistakes. I’ve got to be better. It’s simple.�

The Dodgers got back into the game with a three-run second that featured Yonny Hernández’s RBI double, Betts’ sacrifice fly and Freddie Freeman’s RBI single, and they scored on singles by Max Muncy, David Peralta and Outman to trim the deficit to 6-4 in the eighth.

But Hernández struck out on a 95-mph fastball from reliever Taylor Clarke. Right-hander Scott Barlow replaced Clarke and walked Betts to load the bases, but he got Freeman to ground out to second to end the inning and threw a one-two-three ninth for the save.