Dodgers 9, Phillies 0: Bobby Miller impresses again by striking out 7 over 6 shutout frames

Chad Moriyama 06/10/2023 Game Recaps Leave A Comment

The Dodgers turned to Clayton Kershaw to stop their losing streak a couple games ago, and they leaned on Bobby Miller today to stop their recent pitching struggles from deepening further. Thankfully, he was up to the task and the Dodgers offense showed up today in a 9-0 blowout win over the Phillies.

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While Bobby Miller ended up as the story, early on it looked like Aaron Nola might be, as he cruised through the first eight batters he faced in the game. But like a lot of Dodger rallies this year, theirs in the 3rd came out of nowhere and with two outs, as a James Outman double off the wall was quickly followed by a Mookie Betts RBI single to start the scoring. Advancing to second on the throw home, Mookie then scored as well on a Freddie Freeman single that followed for a 2-0 lead.

The offense got on the board again in the 4th, this time in the simple way with David Peralta smashing a no-doubter to right, his third of the year to make it 4-0.

As mentioned, it was Bobby Miller who starred again, as his debut has gone about ideally as possible. In a way, it was sort of even more promising that he worked out of trouble, as even though things won’t always go his way he’s showed the ability to make pitches.

Indeed, after a 1-2-3 frame in the 1st, he was greeted by a single in the 2nd. After a strikeout, he surrendered a double off the wall to put a pair in scoring position, but he bounced right back with another strikeout. While he issued a walk to load the bases, Miller avoided any damage by inducing a weak groundout to end the threat.

From there, he basically rolled. He gave up a walk in the 3rd but saw that erased by a double play, surrendered just a single in the 4th, and had a clean 5th. I suppose due to the pen game tomorrow they decided to roll the dice a bit and let him get the 6th as well, and Miller responded by putting up another zero, allowing just a walk in his final frame.

6 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 7 K, 104 Pitches

Fortunately that bought enough time for things to come apart at the seams for the Phillies. Nola was still in the game and pitched into the 7th, allowing just a single between the 5th and 6th innings, but the 7th was a mess.

A one-out single by Chris Taylor led to his steal of second, an Outman walk, and then a Mookie single to make it 5-0 and knock Nola out of the game.

The new pitcher provided no relief, as he promptly hit Freddie on the foot to load the bases. Will Smith did follow with a ground out for the second out of the inning, but thankfully it was hit softly enough to advance all runners and plate a run. On the Max Muncy walk that followed, a wild pitch was uncorked that made it 6-0 since Betts scored. Then J.D. Martinez continued his scorching month-plus of baseball, destroying his 16th homer of the year to make it 9-0.

The Dodgers went down quietly in both the 8th and 9th, but it didn’t matter by then.

Andre Jackson was tasked with saving the pen, and he did just that. After he escaped a two-out double and single in the 7th, he cruised through a 1-2-3 frame in the 8th, and allowing just a single in the 9th to close out the game.

A three-inning save and Eric Stephen is happy.

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Here’s Jason Heyward playing first base.

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NL WESTRECORD
Diamondbacks39-25
Dodgers37-28 (2.5 GB)
Giants32-31 (6.5 GB)*

*Either still playing or will play later.

The series concludes tomorrow at the ungodly hour of 7:35 AM HT/10:35 AM PT/1:35 PM ET on a damn Sunday. Despite having Tony Gonsolin on four days rest, the Dodgers are going with a pen game against Taijuan Walker (5.04 ERA/4.51 xERA/4.49 DRA).

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