Dodgers 5, Padres 2: Gavin Stone’s best start backed by bottom of the order finally doing something

Chad Moriyama 04/13/2024 Game Recaps Leave A Comment

After a rain delay of two hours and 15 minutes (the second of the season!), the Dodgers and Padres got underway. It was a bunch of zeroes being exchanged early, but eventually the Dodgers broke through to back Gavin Stone‘s best start in his short career so far, and they also tacked on insurance late in a 5-2 victory.

At least we got this out of the wait!

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I wasn’t immediately familiar with Matt Waldron, but did get excited upon finding out he features a knuckleball, and it was effective early despite some traffic.

The Dodgers continued to struggle with RISP, stranding a walk and two-out steal in the 1st, a walk and two-out error in the 2nd, and a single and walk with nobody out in the 3rd.

The 4th seemed like it might go similarly, as a one-out James Outman single was followed by a steal but also a second out. However, after Gavin Lux worked a walk, Mookie Betts came through with a single to make it 1-0.

Waldron got out of that jam, and then got a clean 5th before exiting, as the Dodgers had worked his pitch count pretty good.

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While all that was going on, Stone was literally perfect. He took all of 57 pitches to get through five innings without allowing a baserunner. While he predictably had all of his pitches dancing, it was his command in particular that was impressive tonight, and he did get some help from guys like Mookie on D.

He was good enough that Jurickson Profar likely purposefully tried to provoke him in order to get a delay and try to throw him off his game.

That continued until the 6th, when Stone issued a lead-off walk to end the perfecto bid. He quickly bounced back from that by getting a double play, but then the no-hit bid ended immediately after with a single. After another single followed there was suddenly trouble, and on a 1-2 count a double from Fernando Tatis Jr. on the Padres’ first chance with RISP tied it up at 1-1.

With the Padres pen now in, the Dodgers looked to get the lead back for Stone in the 6th. After Max Muncy leaned into a ball, one-out singles from Enrique Hernandez and Lux led to a run. Most importantly, it was a bottom of the order finally generated run, which made it 2-1.

The Dodgers quickly took advantage, as Mookie then singled to score another, and Shohei Ohtani hit a deep sacrifice fly to center to push the lead to 4-1.

With a long game yesterday, Dave Roberts let Stone go in the 7th, and things went well early on a groundout and strikeout. However, a double was fisted down the line in right and Tyler Wade singled to score a run and cut the lead to 4-2, knocking Stone out of the game.

This was definitely Stone’s best start as a Dodger: 6.2 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 1 BB, 4 K, 88 Pitches.

Speaking of tired pens, it was Michael Grove who entered in leverage to get a batter, and after a steal he got a strikeout to end the threat and the 7th.

Fortunately, the Dodgers immediately got that back in the bottom half, as Teoscar Hernandez singled and then got to third after a two-base error by Tatis. That immediately resulted in a Muncy sacrifice fly to make it 5-2 and a three-run cushion again.

That was it for the offense on the night after they stranded a lead-off single in the 8th.

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Unlike last night, the middle of the pen was dominant, including Daniel Hudson in the 8th striking out all three batters he faced. However, it was Evan Phillips who faced traffic this time, giving up a pair of singles with one-out to bring the tying run to the plate. Thankfully, a pair of groundouts later and the Dodgers had a win to even the series.

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This is absolute gold.

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11-6, pretty pretty good.

The Dodgers are on ESPN tomorrow against the Padres, so the game is at 1:00 PM HT/4:00 PM PT/7:00 PM ET. It’ll be James Paxton locking horns with Yu Darvish.

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