Dodgers 18, Reds 9: Adrian Gonzalez’s power is back

I called this a “trap game” in the game thread earlier, and it almost was. But the offense produced enough in a 18-9 win against the Reds on Monday afternoon, and it ended up as a season-high 18 runs and 21 hits for the Dodgers.

Scott Kazmir did his damnedest to make this a game, as he got touched up for four runs in 2 2/3 innings. It took him 78 pitches to get those eight outs. He also issued three walks and struck out just one.

Thankfully, the offense got things started in the first inning in the form of an Adrian Gonzalez 3-run dinger. 

Since I wrote about his power outage on June 22, Gonzalez has a .177 ISO and 142 wRC+ (not including today), and this graph shows his ISO has been on the incline.

The Dodgers jumped out to a 6-1 lead through 2 1/2 innings before Kazmir imploded. Jesse Chavez got the final out of the third inning before allowing a run in the fourth inning to make it 6-5 Dodgers. Then, the offense went homer crazy in the fifth inning.

Andrew Toles and Rob Segedin — starting for the slumping Josh Reddick and resting Justin Turner, respectively, hit back-to-back home runs in the fifth inning for their first career home runs.

Then, feeling left out with only two hits up to this point of the game, Corey Seager launched his 22nd homer of the season.

He good. He also had about the quietest 4-hit game imaginable. He has a 13-game hitting streak and his batting average is up to .321 on the season. Drool.

As if Gonzalez going yard in the first inning wasn’t enough, he decided to have another.

That would be the 4+1 game, as Jay Jaffe noted on Twitter.

Pedro Baez, who is bad, allowed two runs in 2/3 of an inning with a 7-run lead. J.P. Howell got the final out of the sixth inning.

After seeing that, the offense decided to jump all over the Reds’ bullpen — again.

It was his third of the day, the second 3-homer game of his career (April 8, 2015) and his 15th home run of the season. If Gonzalez continues to hit for power going forward, that’s going to be a great boost to an already good offense for the rest of the season and in the postseason.

Oh, and he likes hitting in Great American Ballpark.

Yasmani Grandal got into the fun in the 6-run seventh inning with a monster solo shot of his own. That made it 16-7 at that point.

With the win, the Dodgers improve to 69-55 (nice) and lead the NL West by a full game over the Giants. The Dodgers welcome ‘Frisco to Chavez Ravine for a 3-game set beginning Tuesday night. Kenta Maeda (3.29 ERA, 3.67 FIP) takes on Madison Bumgarner (2.25 ERA, 3.21 FIP). First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 p.m. pacific time. Let’s get crazy.

About Dustin Nosler

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Dustin Nosler began writing about the Dodgers in July 2009 at his blog, Feelin' Kinda Blue. He co-hosted a weekly podcast with Jared Massey called Dugout Blues. He was a contributor/editor at The Hardball Times and True Blue LA. He graduated from California State University, Sacramento, with his bachelor’s degree in journalism and a minor in digital media. While at CSUS, he worked for the student-run newspaper The State Hornet for three years, culminating with a 1-year term as editor-in-chief. He resides in Stockton, Calif.