Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers have had the ideal start to their road trip, securing a sweep over the Reds with a 10-5 victory. They have won all seven matchups with the Reds this year, and have all of a sudden won four of their last five games.
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A deeply struggling offense has found life in Cincinnati, scoring at least eight runs for their third game in a row. Reds starter Hunter Greene has impressive stuff, but hasn’t quite figured out how to be effective yet.
The Dodgers made things easier for him early, running into two double plays on fly balls in the first two frames. The one in the 2nd was important in particular, as after Max Muncy singled, Justin Turner doubled, and Gavin Lux walked, so the bases were loaded with just one out. However, they only got a single run on a Cody Bellinger sacrifice fly as JT gave himself up as an out unnecessarily to guarantee a run scoring.
The Dodgers also gifted him an out in the 3rd, as after an Austin Barnes walk, he was thrown out at third on a Trea Turner double. Immediately afterward Freddie Freeman smoked his eighth dinger of the year for a 3-0 lead.
The power surge continued in the 4th, as a JT single and Bellinger crushing a ball for his ninth of the year added two more.
The 5th saw more dong trouble for Greene, giving up a no-doubt solo smash to Muncy, his fifth.
So Greene gave up six runs in his five innings, and that was plenty already for Clayton Kershaw, who continued to round into form.
He was a bit unlucky today on contact, but still managed to work himself around trouble for the most part. The 4th was particularly tough with an infield single, walk, and a Donovan Solano single for a run to start the inning, but he allowed nothing more after that.
Kershaw actually didn’t have a clean inning and faced a RISP in four of his six frames, but was effective: 6 IP, 7 H, 1 R, 1 BB, 7 K, 80 Pitches.
Against the Reds pen the bats continued to pile up the hits and runs. They rallied with two outs in the 6th, with a Bellinger single and stolen base followed by an Barnes walk and then a Turner double plated a run. In the 7th, they added as Will Smith bombed a ball down the line in left for his 10th dinger, making it 8-1.
The Dodgers pen had not given up a run yet in the series, but Phil Bickford did today in the 7th. For the first run he allowed three singles, the last by Brandon Drury. For the next three runs, he gave up a bomb to Tommy Pham to cut the lead to 8-5. He got just two outs.
That forced Dave Roberts to turn to Yency Almonte, who gave up a hit of his own, but got out of the 7th and then continued in the 8th to get four outs. Thankfully he did throw only 10 pitches.
The bats did rally to get the runs Bickford surrendered back and make things less risky for the pen. In the 7th, Bellinger singled for his third hit of the day, Barnes drew his third walk of the day, and Freeman singled sharply on like his fourth hard-hit ball of the day for a run and a 9-5 lead. That was followed in the 9th by Trayce Thompson stepping up an absolutely destroying a ball to the upper deck in left for the 10-5 final.
That lead allowed David Price to get the 9th, who cruised through a 1-2-3 inning to end it.
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Story time!
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The Dodgers improve to 43-25 on the year and are a half-game ahead of the Padres in the NL West with them yet to play.
A 2021 NLCS rematch comes to Atlanta tomorrow at 1:20 PM HT/4:20 PM PT/7:20 PM ET with Julio Urias against Ian Anderson for the Braves.
