Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers are playing some of their best ball to close the season and that continued tonight in an 8-3 romp over the Brewers to make it six wins in a row.
Julio Urias was the star in keeping the Brewers quiet, while the bats got behind Justin Turner early and never looked back.
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After last October, Urias is no stranger to big games, but it was a question whether this would even be one. If it wasn’t, Dave Roberts was going to limit his pitch count, but the Padres miraculously beat the Giants, so it was go time.
Things didn’t start ideally, as Julio issued a walk and a double with one out before giving up a run on a ground out to put the Dodgers behind 1-0 early.
Normally this is not a big deal, but it seemed much bigger given that they were facing NL Cy Young Award front-runner and NL MVP candidate Corbin Burnes. But the lineup of the Dodgers has been red hot of late and they exploded again in the 1st. Resembling last October’s offense, they rallied with two outs behind a Trea Turner single, a Max Muncy walk, and a JT three-run bomb to left-center to make it 3-1.
Even better, after Burnes rebounded with a 1-2-3 inning in the 2nd, the Craig Counsell did the absolute right thing and took him out of the game. A true hero!
Following Burnes was Colin Rea, who got a scoreless 3rd, but then gave up back-to-back singles to Muncy and JT to start the 4th and corner the runners. Will Smith then flew out to plate another run and make it 4-1.
Thankfully, the Dodgers didn’t stop there as AJ Pollock continued to really lead the offense by smashing a two-run homer to make it 6-1.
They got another run in the 5th behind the red-hot bat of Corey Seager smashing a solo dong.
Other than the bats continuing to thrive, Urias was the story, living up to his new big game reputation by bouncing back from the rocky 1st and retiring 16 batters in a row. That was broken up by a walk in the 6th, but he got the final out of that inning and the first out of the 7th before exiting to a standing ovation.
6.1 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 7 K, 92 Pitches
Phil Bickford entered next to face his old team and boy he seemed fired up. He was pumping 95-96 mph regularly and topped out at 97, the hardest pitch of his career. He got an infield pop and a lineout to end the 7th.
Rea was still in there in the 8th, and the Dodgers added more runs. A Trea double off the chalk in left was cashed in by a Muncy fly-ball double off the padding above the scoreboard to give the Dodgers an 8-1 lead.
Mitch White got the 8th in 1-2-3 fashion and David Price followed in the 9th but struggled. He gave up a solo homer, then a double and a walk, but induced a GIDP to end it.
Here we go, baby.
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The Dodgers are an impressive 105-56 on the year now and gained a game on the Giants as the Padres beat them in extras. It’s a game deficit now.
The matchup for the series and season finale will be the Dodgers sending out Walker Buehler against … uh, somebody for the Brewers.
So that’s promising, but the problem is that it’s Logan Webb for the Giants against Reiss Knehr of the Padres tomorrow, which … yikes.
Every game in baseball starts at (or around) 9:10 AM HT/12:10 PM PT/3:10 PM ET tomorrow, and besides the NL West race, the clusterfuck unfolding in the AL Wild Card race is also something fun to monitor tomorrow.
