Dodgers 5, Reds 3: Get Wood

Adrian Gonzalez and Alex Wood led the Dodgers to a 5-3 victory over the Reds, though probably the most surprising outing came from the bullpen.

Wood continued his run of solid but unspectacular starts, going 6.1 innings on 82 pitches, and he sure looked like he was alright to go more. Wood surrendered only five hits and induced a ton of weak looking contact, but walked three and struck out only three.

When you look back though, Wood pretty thoroughly dominated the Reds today … with the exception of Joey Votto. Votto victimized Wood twice and accounted for all of their runs, driving a double into the right-center gap for a 1-0 lead in the first and then cutting the Reds deficit to the final score of 5-3 on a two-run homer in the sixth to left-center. He good? Yeah, he good.

Thankfully then, the Dodgers offense actually decided to show up today. They totaled 11 hits and four walks, including doubles from Jimmy Rollins and Andre Ethier. The big blow came during a two-out rally in the fourth, when A-Gon deposited a pitch over the right-field fence for a 5-1 lead at the time. The other two runs were supplied by Justin Turner via a sacrifice fly in the first to tie the game and a single that preceded the A-Gon dinger.

As previously alluded to though, it was the bullpen that turned in a seeming miracle, as they went 2.2 scoreless innings behind Jim Johnson, Pedro Baez, and Kenley Jansen. As a unit they allowed no hits, no walks, and struck out three.

And now for their next mission, how about two quality bullpen games in a row?!

Winning is better than losing.

—–

"If Gonzalez is the butter and egg man, Turner is the ginger man." -Vin Scully

— Stacie Wheeler (@StacieMWheeler) August 15, 2015

Of particular note is Enrique Hernandez, who went 3-for-4 and now has a slash of .305/.359/.511/.870. Sooo … interesting.