Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers’ offense exploded, Rich Hill dominated, and the defense didn’t let anyone down in a decisive 7-2 win over the Padres Saturday night in front of a roaring crowd of 53,536 at Dodger Stadium. The bullpen scuffled a bit in the ninth, but Kenley Jansen ultimately came in and shut the door.
Meanwhile, the Diamondbacks continued their downward spiral with another loss to the Rockies tonight. Their elimination number is now down to one. With their 86th win, the Dodgers maintain their 1 1/2 game lead in the NL West with seven games remaining.
Joc Pederson can’t be stopped. He blasted another leadoff dong, his 10th of his career and 7th this season, to give the Dodgers an early 1-0 lead.
.@yungjoc650 only needed two pitches. pic.twitter.com/XMAlS0SCYi
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) September 23, 2018
The Dodgers knocked in a cool 5 runs in the third off Jacob Nix. Chris Taylor led off with a single, and Pederson was at it again with a ground-rule double to left field. Justin Turner drove in both runners with a double that went just down the left field line.
The Dodgers continued to torture Nix, and the inning was filled with hard hits off the right-hander. Just like it was written up, Manny Machado crushed a three-run shot on his bobblehead night.
So Manny reasons to homer but going yard on your bobblehead night seems like a good one. pic.twitter.com/pS3MBJp8r9
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) September 23, 2018
That’s Manny’s 36th homer on the season and his 12th as a Dodger. LA took a commanding 6-0 lead, and Nix was chased from the game after he allowed yet another extra-base hit in the frame after the Manny homer, a Cody Bellinger double.
The celebration was fun.
Dick Mountain was dealing tonight, and he held San Diego to just three hits over his the five frames with five strikeouts and no walks.
The Padres finally got on the board in the top of the sixth with a Hunter Renfroe solo home run.
In the sixth, Yasmani Grandal took Brad Wiek deep with a solo dong that landed in the Loge level of Dodger Stadium to give the Dodgers a 7-1 lead. That was Grandal’s 24th home run of the season and his 89th as a Dodger. His deep fly also gave the Dodgers 222 home runs on the season, a new franchise record.
Did @YazmanianDVL08 just hit the Dodgers’ franchise record 222nd home run?
Yaz. pic.twitter.com/1boBezCCDZ
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) September 23, 2018
Alex Wood came in to relieve Hill in to start the eighth. Hill allowed one run on four hits with seven strikeouts and no walks over seven innings and 93 pitches (67 strikes). Hill notched his 10th win of the season, the first Dodgers starter to get to double digit wins this season. Wood got a quick yank after allowing a leadoff single to Cory Spangenberg. Josh Fields came in and restored order with two strikeouts.
Yimi Garcia got an out, but allowed a Austin Hedges double to start the ninth. Tony Cingrani was the next to come out of the Dodgers bullpen and promptly hit a batter, and Wil Myers singled to load the bases for San Diego. Manuel Margot then drove in the Padres’ second run of the night with a sharp base hit that got by David Freese at third. Finally, Dave Roberts had enough and brought in Jansen to finish it off. Jansen struck out two and picked up his 37th save of the year.
Jansen had some really interesting stuff to say in his post-game interview with Alanna Rizzo about some mechanical adjustments he made.
“Well, I gotta be honest I guess, just a little tweak of my mechanics. Just started from the bottom of my feet, just to have the weight more inside of my legs. Kinda shifted a little bit more instead of going back and then going forward and spin so. Everyday I keep working on this stuff.”
“I know that I’m a big guy, and I have a lot of parts that have to move to go somewhere to go home. You know, it’s not easy for me compared to a guy who’s like shorter than me who’s like pitching out there on the mound. I’ve got long legs, long arms, and everything’s have to have timing and catching up to each other. Kinda have to be almost perfect as a big guy pitching. That’s one thing that motivates me. Dealing with failing this year, motivates me to become better and great so.”
“One thing I’ll never lose is confidence. I promised myself that.”
Kenley somehow kept his composure during the interview while Enrique Hernandez did Kiké things in the background, trying to shake his concentration in a silly way of course. The team chemistry is sure bad, isn’t it? Speaking of team comaraderie, I caught Bellinger yelling Spanish at Maeda in the clubhouse before the game, reminding us why we love this team.
“¿Qué pasó, Kenta?” –Cody Bellinger
“Kenta’s Japanese, Belli.” – Tony Cingrani
— Stacie Wheeler (@StacieMWheeler) September 22, 2018
I’ll just leave you with that.
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The Dodgers go for the series win tomorrow in their final regular season home game at Dodger Stadium. Hyun-Jin Ryu (5-3, 2.18 ERA, 3.11 FIP) looks for continued success in his comeback year and will face fellow left-hander Joey Lucchesi (8-8, 3.74 ERA, 4.04 FIP) with first pitch at 1:10 PM PT.
