Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
In theory, a June matchup between the first and second place teams in a division should be a somewhat tense affair as they battle for position. However, in this case, it a double-digit lead so there’s honestly not a ton at stake.
Still, it’s a series of two of the hottest teams in baseball and they delivered a gem tonight with a pitchers’ duel and a walk-off that thankfully resulted in the Dodgers prevailing over the Rockies, 4-2.
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This was almost entirely the tale of Walker Buehler and German Marquez, one of whom has been the best pitcher in baseball this month and the other who despite the surface stats has been great all year.
The Dodgers managed to take the lead against Marquez in the 2nd. Max Muncy singled to start and should’ve been doubled off on a liner to short, but Brendan Rodgers threw the ball into the dugout and he ended up on third instead. That was immediately taken advantage of by Chris Taylor, who lofted a sacrifice fly for a 1-0 lead.
The Rockies struck back in the 4th behind a solo dong from Nolan Arenado to tie the game. But in their half of the inning, the Dodgers came right back behind Cody Bellinger and his 25th dong to take the lead back at 2-1.
That lead held up until the 6th, when Charlie Blackmon countered with another homer to tie the game at 2-2.
That really was about it against the starters. Marquez went eight innings, gave up two runs (one earned) on five hits and no walks while striking out eight. The Dodgers had two at-bats with RISP in the 1st apart from the sac fly and that was it.
Somehow Buehler was better. He threw a complete game on 111 pitches, and he didn’t get into the stretch until he gave up a single in the 9th, which he escaped by striking out Arenado.
Buehler stuck out 16 and walked none, giving up two runs on two solo dongs. Hilariously it was his worst start of the month by ERA.
That all seemed to be wasted as the Dodgers made two outs in the 9th against Jairo Diaz. Muncy then walked, but him hitting a homer seemed like the best bet.
Yeah about that.
Matt Beaty came up huge and drilled a two-run walk-off shot, his second dong of the year, to end this playoff-esque game.
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Rabbit ears.
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The Dodgers improve to 52-25 on the year and are now 11 games up on the Rockies in the NL West.
The two teams do this again tomorrow at an earlier time of 1:15 PM HST/4:15 PM PST/7:15 PM EST. Hyun-Jin Ryu will face Peter Lambert.
