Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
After seeing their winning streak come to an end in Houston, the Dodgers welcomed the rival Giants into Dodger Stadium following their sweep of them last time the two teams met in San Francisco. The Dodgers got the mission to repeat that feat off on the right foot with a 4-3 win thanks to a trio of homers.
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David Price started off the pen game for the Dodgers and looked stellar, he gave Dave Roberts 35 flawless pitches, retiring all eight batters he faced and striking out five of them in a dominating showing.
Alex Vesia entered with a soft landing but issued back-to-back walks before getting a strikeout to end the 3rd.
Old friend Alex Wood started against the Dodgers for the second time in like a week. After a clean 1st, he gave up a one-out double in the 2nd, but got out of it unscathed. He looked to be cruising through the 3rd as well, but the Dodgers put up one of their two-out rallies behind a Mookie Betts triple and then Justin Turner rocketing his ninth homer of the year for a 2-0 lead.
Vesia continued for the Dodgers in the 4th, getting the first two outs of the inning before giving way to Joe Kelly. His quest to get his ERA into the single digits started roughly as he served a homer to Evan Longoria to make it 2-1 before the inning ended. The 5th thankfully involved a lot less drama, getting a 1-2-3 frame, including a strikeout.
It didn’t take long for the Dodgers to get the run back against Wood, as DJ Peters led the 5th off with a homer for his first in the majors to make it 3-1.
Surprisingly, Kelly continued in the 6th, notching a strikeout before finally giving way. Victor Gonzalez, one of the high-leverage arms, entered and ran into immediate trouble by surrendering a single and then giving up his first homer in the MLB to Donovan Solano for his first homer of the year to tie things at 3-3.
Wood remained in the game on the other side, which gave Max Muncy a third crack at him in the 6th, and he turned the game around again with a skyscraping dong to right that he punctuated with a rare bat toss. It was Muncy’s 11th on the year and gave the Dodgers a 4-3 lead.
After Wood exited, Zack Littell and Jarlin Garcia got perfect innings in the 7th and 8th to close the book on the Dodgers.
For the Dodgers, Gonzalez continued on in the 7th, getting a strikeout before being replaced in a bit of a surprise choice in Nate Jones. The move worked out at least, with Jones getting the bottom of the lineup to end the frame.
Setting up as usual, Blake Treinen took the mound in the 8th, and he was disgusting in a 1-2-3 inning that had two strikeouts.
Kenley Jansen then entered and emphatically slammed the door, striking out the first two batters of the inning and then getting away with one a bit to end it, which you can do when you’re throwing mid-90s instead of high-80s.
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The Dodgers improve to 31-19 with the victory and are now just a half game behind the Padres in the NL West.
The second game of four in this series will start tomorrow at 4:10 PM HST/7:10 PM PST/10:10 PM EST with Walker Buehler (2.78 ERA/3.36 FIP/3.56 DRA) facing off against Anthony DeSclafani (3.54 ERA/3.56 FIP/3.59 DRA).
