Cody Bellinger returns, Dodgers’ bats go quiet in loss to Cubs

LOS ANGELES ― Dodger Stadium held no ill will toward Cody Bellinger. The Dodgers’ longtime center fielder received a loud ovation before his return visit with the Chicago Cubs after a tribute video played before the game, showing his highlights from six years in a Dodgers uniform.

The announced sellout crowd of 52,298 clapped again before Bellinger’s first at-bat – he stepped out of the box and was cruelly penalized with an automatic strike for violating the pitch-timer rule – and again when he doubled into the right field corner in the fourth inning.

The only ill will Friday night was the Dodgers’ starting catcher; Will Smith could not play because he was sick. Without one of their hottest hitters, the Dodgers matched their season-low with three hits in an 8-2 loss to the Chicago Cubs.

Their other three-hit game? Tuesday night in San Francisco. As the baseball gods would have it, the Dodgers managed to sandwich those two losses around a 10-run outburst Wednesday night against the Giants.

Then again, consistency hasn’t been the Dodgers’ forte en route to a 7-7 record. They won three straight, then lost three straight, from April 3-9. In their other eight games, they haven’t won or lost two in a row.

“I think that to sync up hitting and pitching, get some traction, and win consecutive ballgames, that’s been hard for us to do at this point,” Manager Dave Roberts said. “Tonight, you’ve just got to flush it. We were in there the whole game, lost it late.”

The Dodgers trailed 3-2 after Max Muncy homered against Cubs starter Justin Steele in the seventh inning. It was Muncy’s fifth home run this week; he swatted four in San Francisco against the Giants.

Chicago then broke the game open with three runs in the eighth inning and two more in the ninth, all against Dodgers pitcher Andre Jackson.

The right-hander allowed solo home runs to Ian Happ, Seiya Suzuki and Patrick Wisdom in the eighth. He allowed another homer to Yan Gomes in the ninth and one more run scored when Nico Hoerner stole second base, then scored on a double by Happ.

Happ finished 4 for 4 with three RBIs and a walk. Gomes homered twice and stole a base.

Jackson was charged with five earned runs in two innings, inflating his ERA to 8.64. Roberts had left-hander Caleb Ferguson warming up in the bullpen, but he did not want to use one of his high-leverage relievers in a game the Dodgers trailed and were struggling to string together hits.

“That’s a decision I made and obviously it didn’t work out,” he said.

Jackson acknowledged he might have been tipping his pitches.

“It comes in waves,” he said. “May be some tipping in there. I definitely left a lot of pitches in the middle of the plate.”

The final score obscured a serviceable start by Dodgers pitcher Noah Syndergaard, who allowed three runs in six innings. The right-hander relied on an effective changeup to strike out nine batters while walking two. He exited with the Dodgers trailing 3-1.

Syndergaard also struggled to coax speed from his four-seam fastball, which topped out at 92.5 mph, below his season average. He threw only eight four-seamers in the game out of 92 pitches total.

“The workload that I had in-between starts, I threw quite a bit,” Syndergaard said. “It might have been a little bit of that. I’ll just probably manage the workload intensity before my next start.”

After his first three regular-season starts, Syndergaard is 0-2 with a 5.63 ERA. Batters are slugging .515 against him. But he was not the Dodgers’ biggest problem Friday.