Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers beat two left-handed starters in a row, just like everybody expected, to take the series against the Red Sox after tonight’s 8-5 win. The Dodgers are now 11-9 after the All-Star break and 3-3 in the post-Yasiel Puig era.
Rob Segedin was undoubtedly the star of this game, as he came through with the big hits for the team while making his MLB debut at age 27 after seven years in the minors.
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Let’s go back to the beginning for a bit, though.
Continuing from his struggles against the Rockies, Brandon McCarthy simply didn’t have a feel for the ball again. In 65 pitches, McCarthy threw 34 balls and 31 strikes, including walking five, throwing a wild pitch, and hitting a batter. It wasn’t just fine command either, he was missing by like 10 feet, much like these two pitches.
Somehow though, he made it through 3.2 innings, giving up just two runs on two hits and not taking the Dodgers out of the game entirely. Josh Fields came in to clean up for McCarthy for one batter in the fourth, and got him on a strikeout.
So that put the team in an early 2-0 hole, but fortunately, the Dodgers offense brought the lumber tonight.
The fourth inning is when the Dodgers struck with a crooked number. Justin Turner led things off with a solo homer to left field to put the Dodgers on the board and cut the lead in half, 2-1.
The bats then proceeded to load the bases on an Adrian Gonzalez double, Josh Reddick reaching on an error, and Yasmani Grandal walking. With one down, that brought up Segedin in his MLB debut, and with a 2-0 count, he crushed a David Price fastball off the center-field wall to score both A-Gon and Reddick and take the lead 3-2.
In the fifth, the offense got things rolling again. A Corey Seager walk, an A-Gon single, and Enrique Hernandez reaching on an error led to JT scoring (who grounded out and replaced Seager at first) from third and doubling the lead to 4-2. With two down, Grandal walked again to load the bases for Segedin. Again, Price got behind 2-0 and again he grooved a fastball which Segedin ripped the other way for a single to score both A-Gon and Enrique and put the Dodgers up 6-2.
Rob Segedin's four RBIs are the most by a Dodger making his debut in franchise history.
— J.P. Hoornstra (@jphoornstra) August 8, 2016
https://twitter.com/ChadMoriyama/status/762454546639560708
So all that got the Dodgers out to a 6-2 lead and they cruised the rest of the way, right? Of course not, it’s the Dodgers. While Jesse Chavez pitched a perfect four outs, he was relieved in the sixth for matchup reasons and lefty Luis Avilan entered. Avilan struggled mightily, recording only one out while giving up three hits and two runs to cut the lead to 6-4. Joe Blanton entered to put out the fire, but he walked a batter and gave up another Avilan run on a single before escaping the inning with the lead barely intact at 6-5. Blanton proceeded to get two outs in the seventh before being replaced by Pedro Baez, who managed to handle a lefty to hold the lead.
In the seventh, the Dodgers got the insurance they desperately needed, with A-Gon and Enrique going back-to-back and putting the Dodgers up by the final score of 8-5.
We were also reminded what the best part about Enrique being good was, the celebrations.
Whatever that is.
Baez then got a perfect eighth inning, and he turned it over to Kenley Jansen. Jansen has seemingly found his groove, striking out the side for the second consecutive night to notch the win and the save.
https://twitter.com/ChadMoriyama/status/762478934378196992
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With the win, the Dodgers up their record to 62-49 overall and an excellent 35-21 at home. The Giants fell today, which means their lead in the NL West race is down to 1 game. In the NL Wild Card race, the Marlins won and the Cardinals lost, so the Dodgers are up on those teams by 3 games for home-field advantage and 4 games to make the playoffs, respectively.
The Dodgers welcome the Phillies tomorrow night at 4:10 PM HST/7:10 PM PST/10:10 PM EST, with the pitching matchup being Julio Urias (4.98 ERA/3.56 FIP/3.82 DRA) against Zach Eflin (4.77/4.88/6.11).
