Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers were on the verge of selling every player for prospects after losing … *Checks Notes* … two games in a row. Thankfully, they rebounded from that horrific tailspin with a 7-2 victory over the rival Giants today.
Dodgers fans showed out.
After stranding the bases loaded in the 1st against Jeff Samardzija, the Dodgers put something together in the 3rd. Joc Pederson struck out but reached on a wild pitch, and Justin Turner doubled to put both into scoring position. After a Cody Bellinger intentional walk, Corey Seager came up with a single that put the Dodgers up 1-0.
As is usually the case against the Giants, they should’ve got more after that, but couldn’t push anything across with the bases loaded and one out.
In their half of the 3rd, the Giants did things the easy way off Rich Hill as Aramis Garcia smashed a homer to tie the game, 1-1. In the 4th, he gave up another run after allowing a double, a walk, and a single to Jorge Solano to put the Dodgers down one, 2-1.
But the Dodgers came back in the 5th to tie things up at 2. Turner led off with a single and then expertly read a ball in the dirt to get to scoring position. Bellinger then moved him to third on a grounder to the right side, and Seager plated the run with a double.
They then jumped out to the lead in the 6th, partially thanks to a one-out double by Kyle Garlick, which was the first hit in his MLB career.
After Joc was hit by a pitch and Muncy walked, the bases were loaded yet again, and this time at least the Dodgers got something out of it with a JT sacrifice fly to make it 3-2.
Hill was replaced by Julio Urias after just five innings. While he only surrendered the two runs, after two clean innings to start, Hill stranded runners in scoring position in every subsequent frame that and didn’t look sharp. He struck out six but issued seven hits and three walks to a Giants lineup that has struggled all year and is without Buster Posey.
While Urias did give up a single and two walks, he also provided two scoreless frames.
That bought the offense enough time to break out in the 8th, as Russell Martin started with a single and David Freese followed with a double down the line. Joc then hit the ball sharply to short, but reached after an attempt to catch Martin straying off third failed, loading the bases. That’s when things got messy, as Dereck Rodriguez issued back-to-back walks to Muncy and JT to make it 5-2.
After a ball went to the backstop, Joc was thrown out at the plate, so the Giants walked Bellinger intentionally for the third time. Unsurprisingly, the hottest hitter on the team doubled with the bases loaded to plate another two runs at 7-2.
That was the safe lead for Joe Kelly to get work in and he actually impressed. He struck out three batters in an inning and got a fly out, which was required because one of his strikeouts got by Martin.
Yimi Garcia was tasked with a low leverage outing in the 9th, and he completed the job with two strikeouts in a scoreless frame to end it.
By the end of the game, thankfully it wasn’t that exciting.
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The Dodgers improve to 44-21 with the win, a 110-win pace (that’s it?!), and they lead the NL West by 10 games over the Rockies and Padres. Thanks to the Twins and Astros also dropping some games, the Dodgers once again have the best record in baseball.
The rubber match of the series will start early at 10:05 AM HST/1:05 PM PST/4:05 PM EST with Walker Buehler looking to continue his successful run against Madison Bumgarner.
