Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers secured the series victory over the Marlins by edging them in extra innings by a 3-2 score, largely behind the efforts of emergency starter Michael Grove and the bullpen.
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Grove took to the mound in place of the now-injured Tony Gonsolin and filled in admirably. Granted, things started rocky in the 1st after he surrendered a lead-off double that later scored on a groundout, but he pitched around an error and a walk in the 2nd and got a clean 3rd.
Unfortunately, a one-out triple in the 4th was cashed in by a single later, and Grove was only allowed to get two outs in the 5th after allowing a lead-off single as Dave Roberts came to get him. Still did his job by keeping the Dodgers in it: 4.2 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 4 K, 66 Pitches.
David Price relieved him, but allowed a double and then walked the bases loaded before getting out of the inning.
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That escape act kept the game tied, and it was tied because on the other end was Pablo Lopez, and he gave up a Freddie Freeman single in the 3rd and then a Will Smith dinger for two.
But Lopez was otherwise effective, navigating through threats in the 1st (single, walk) and 4th (double, walk) without damage, and getting through six frames only giving up the two runs.
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Despite the rocky start with Price, the Dodgers pen was stellar today. Caleb Ferguson took over in the 6th and got two groundouts and a strikeout to strand a lead-off double. Evan Phillips cruised through a perfect frame in the 7th, and while he took 20 pitches, Phil Bickford did the same in the 8th.
The Marlins pen started out just as well, retiring six in a row before the 9th, where a lead-off walk was followed by two outs in a single, but wasn’t cashed in. And that got us to Craig Kimbrel in the 9th, who has been much-maligned this year, but twirled a dominant 1-2-3 frame with two strikeouts to send things to extras.
The Dodgers started the bonus baseball with an infield single from Trea Turner to corner the runners, and Freddie then basically beat out a double play to plate the ghost runner and give the Dodgers a 3-2 lead. But they were not able to add insurance, and things seemed potentially bleak.
Especially so when Kimbrel was allowed to continue in the 10th to try and close things out but issued a pair of walks to load the bases while only getting one out.
So Dave called upon Chris Martin to play fireman, and that he did. Martin punched out the first batter he faced and then induced a foul out to end the game.
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89-38 overall and 44-22 away from home.
The Dodgers now travel to New York for a 1:10 PM HT/4:10 PM PT/7:10 PM ET game against the Mets with Andrew Heaney facing Taijuan Walker.
