Dodgers 8, Giants 3: The Joc Pederson Party

Great news, everybody! The Dodgers will not lose in every game they play the Giants this year, as they emerged victorious against the evilest of foes, 8-3.

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Starting pitcher Brett Anderson continued to do his best Dan Haren impression on the mound, generating only two swinging strikes and getting removed with two outs in the fifth inning with two runners on. For the day, he made it through 4.2 innings, giving up three runs on two walks and five hits while striking out three. Swell!

Thankfully, the Dodgers bats came to play today and backed him with a four-run explosion in the third inning thanks to RBI singles from Howie Kendrick and Juan Uribe, an RBI double from Joc Pederson, and a run coming home on a throwing error by Andrew Susac.

Timmy, thoughts?

Speaking of Pederson, he also added to the lead with his third homer of the year.

Oh yeah, and he made this nice #JocIsACenterFielder double play as well.

The bullpen shut the door again with its tremendous depth, combining Carlos Frias sitting 95-97 mph with his sinker, Adam Liberatore coming at 92-94 mph from the left side, and Yimi Garcia continuing to destroy worlds.

After that, Justin Turner added three insurance runs following Yusmeiro Petit clearly walking Joc on purpose cause he was batting eighth (or something?).

Chris Hatcher shut the door in the ninth to secure the win by finally hurling a scoreless inning.

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-Reminder that the Dodgers are on a 102-win pace right now. I am constantly worrying and complaining, but even I can’t complain about the big picture here. Fucking relax.

–Jimmy Rollins continued to struggle on balls in play, going 0-for-3 but hitting the ball hard once and walking twice. Either way, he shouldn’t be leading off and that has nothing to do with his struggles.

-Speaking of struggles, Yasmani Grandal went 0-4 and is now at the Mendoza Line. The upside is that the exit velocity on the balls he hits is actually very high, so he’s been unlucky on a few smashed liners, but my main concern is the lack of loft he has right now.

-Uribe is still not destroying the ball or anything, but he is now quietly hitting .271.

–Carl Crawford “tweaked his right side” on a triple, which might be bad if it ends up being an oblique issue. The gods are doing everything possible to get Alex Guerrero playing time.