Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers entered tonight as winners of six of their last seven games and hold a share of the best record in baseball title. They welcomed a Phillies team who figured to be a test, as they lead the NL East and have the second-best record in the NL.
The Dodgers ended up passing at least the initial question of the test, as they took the series opener against the Phillies by a 6-3 score thanks to a quartet of dongs and quality pitching.
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The Dodgers scored all of their six runs tonight on an assortment of dongs, of which they had four.
After a two scoreless innings for Jake Arrieta, he was greeted in the 3rd by a Joc Pederson single and Max Muncy obliterating his 12th dong of the year to right field for a 2-0 lead.
Pimp it.
They other damage against Arrieta came in the 5th, when Joc started the inning with his 17th dong of the year, an absolutely monster shot that was indeed quite impressive.
Muncy followed with a single and then Corey Seager turned a pitch around and got his 7th dong of the year for a 5-2 lead.
Coming into today’s game, Seager had a .918 OPS over the last 15 days. Don’t let the kid get hot.
What a segue.
Enrique Hernandez capped the dong party in the 8th with his 9th of the year to get some insurance by making it 6-2.
Of course there’s a two in the score there because Phillies did score two runs off Kenta Maeda, one coming off an Andrew McCutchen solo shot and the other being plated by an Arrieta single. However, Kenta looked as good as he has this year, providing six strong innings and striking out six while surrendering just three hits and walking none.
Ross Stripling took over in the 7th, so I guess he’s the latest in the string of balsa wood to try and form a bridge to Kenley Jansen. He issued a walk but got a strikeout and a scoreless inning. The same applied to Pedro Baez in the 8th, as he also issued a walk and got a strikeout, and thankfully also got a scoreless inning.
It’s a miracle.
Dylan Floro gave up a bloop single after a misread in the outfield and then a fielder’s indifference, but did get two outs. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get the final out, as Floro allowed a grounded single up the middle to plate a run and make it 6-3.
A save situation was suddenly born and that meant it was Kenley time. He ended it without any further mess, getting a strikeout to end it.
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The Dodgers are now 20 games over .500 with the win at 39-19, which is a 109-win pace, and they maintain their 8.5-game lead in the NL West over the Padres as well as their tie on games for the best record in baseball with the Twins.
The two teams will do it again tomorrow at 4:10 PM HST/7:10 PM PST/10:10 PM EST, with Clayton Kershaw (LHP/3.46 ERA/3.81 FIP/3.71 DRA) facing Cole Irvin (LHP/5.60 ERA/4.93 FIP/5.91 DRA), which is a tough matchup for a rookie.
