Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
So about that struggling offense … well, at least for one game that went right out the window as the Dodgers absolutely drubbed the Pirates to start the series. The Dodgers amassed 21 hits, including four doubles and four homers, and six walks in a 17-1 blowout victory.
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The Dodgers got on the board early tonight, but it was anything but conventional. With one down, Max Muncy reached second base on an error after Nick Kingham had a throw bounce off his glove as he was covering the bag at first. With two down, Kingham then balked Muncy to third, and Cody Bellinger cashed in a run with an dribbler in front of home plate that became a single after he beat the throw to first.
Matt Kemp followed with a single of his own to put runners on the corners, but Bellinger ended up scoring from third during Yasmani Grandal‘s plate appearance after catcher Elias Diaz made a throw back that was sort of off and Kingham was seemingly caught wrong-footed.
Baseball is a weird sport sometimes.
Alex Wood unfortunately allowed that lead to be cut in half almost immediately in the 2nd by surrendering a dong to Diaz, making it 2-1 in favor of the Dodgers. Thankfully, Bellinger got the advantage back in the 3rd, bombing a 3-0 pitch over the wall in center for his 17th of the season.
The rally continued after Kemp doubled and then Grandal and Chris Taylor walked to load the bases, and Yasiel Puig plated a run by barely beating out a double play on a grounder.
But it was in the 4th when things really started to get out of hand. The inning started with back-to-back homers from Joc and Muncy, their 12th and 18th dongs of the year, respectively.
Muncy’s swag levels are out of control.
Charley Steiner … had trouble.
Charley Steiner goes through Joc Pederson's entire at bat and home run thinking he's Max Muncy, then the real Muncy homers right after pic.twitter.com/1MkNL7Xsdc
— bird hating account (@atf13atf) July 3, 2018
That was just the start of it, as JT doubled, Kemp singled, Grandal doubled, CT3 singled, and Puig doubled to put four more runs on the board to make it 10-1.
Amazingly, the Dodgers came right back in the 5th for more. JT singled, Cody walked, Kemp singled, Grandal walked, Taylor singled, and Puig singled to add three more runs to the tally.
The bats piled on even more in the 6th behind a Muncy walk, Logan Forsythe single (!!!), and Kemp killing his 15th homer of the year to left center.
That still wasn’t it, as Grandal singled, CT3 singled, and Puig then doubled to add another run and make it 17-1.
And exhale.
Oh right, the Dodgers were pitching too, and Wood helped make this game even easier than it already was with all the offense. Aside from the homer, he gave up just five singles, walked none, and struck out three over six innings. Wouldn’t say he was necessarily at his best, but he certainly looked to be back on the right track.
While Wood got the win, Caleb Ferguson ended up getting the save (lol) after entering in relief in the 7th and throwing three scoreless. He allowed four hits and only struck out one, but was effective and saved the rest of the pen.
Nice to have a laugher.
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Yasiel Puig was hyped on defense.
Also decided to take a nap.
https://twitter.com/ChadMoriyama/status/1014006552422858753
Things went well offensively.
The Dodgers are the first team in 7 years to bat around in 3-straight innings.
— Joe Davis (@Joe_Davis) July 3, 2018
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The blowout improves the Dodgers to 45-39 overall and gets them above .500 to 24-23 at home. It also gets them to within 1.5 games in the NL West due to the Diamondbacks losing.
Tomorrow afternoon at 4:10 PM HST/7:10 PM PST/10:10 PM EST, they’ll look to improve even further with Clayton Kershaw on the hill against Ivan Nova.
