Dodgers 9, Red Sox 6: A sweep behind 6 homers, including a massive 473-foot shot from Shohei Ohtani

Chad Moriyama 07/21/2024 Game Recaps Leave A Comment

After back-to-back comeback wins for the Dodgers to start the second half, they played another fun one against the Red Sox that ended up completing the sweep. While they fell behind early, a massive barrage of six homers followed, which was enough for the 9-6 victory.

======

James Paxton looked like he was going to have another one of those games when he started things off, allowing a double and then a homer to Jarren Duran for his first two batters, putting the Red Sox up 2-0.

He followed with two outs and two walks, but limited the damage. Paxton then managed to post four scoreless innings to follow that, making through five innings and setting the Dodgers up nicely.

——

That gave the Dodgers enough time to tee off on Kutter Crawford. They came right back in the 1st, as Freddie Freeman hit his 16th homer to cut the lead in half, and then back-to-back doubles from Andy Pages and Gavin Lux tied it up at 2-2.

After a quiet 2nd, Teoscar Hernandez popped his 20th dinger of the year for the 3-2 lead.

It was really an overall effort from the lineup, as Lux hit his 5th homer of the year in the 4th to double the lead to 4-2. That made it two homers and two doubles in his last four at-bats.

The 5th was the best, just because of the insanity of it. Austin Barnes started things by hitting his first homer of the year…

…and then hilariously it got immediately eclipsed by Shohei Ohtani‘s 30th, which nearly went over the roof of Dodger Stadium.

That’s the second longest homer ever at the park after Giancarlo Stanton‘s shot off Mike Bolsinger.

Amusingly, the Dodgers almost immediately gave that back in the 6th, as Paxton issued a walk and single to start, exiting the game apparently having used all his juice.

Joe Kelly followed Paxton by getting two outs, but Ceddanne Rafaela singled to cut the lead to 6-3. That led to Ryan Yarbrough entering and escaping the jam with a flyout. Yarbrough then continued in the 7th, in surprisingly dominant fashion, striking out the side.

Anthony Banda then entered and looked concerning, giving up a single and hitting a batter to start the 8th. However, after getting behind 2-0, he induced a double play and then got a strikeout to escape without damage done.

——

Against the Red Sox pen, the bats didn’t do much in the 6th or 7th, but in the 8th they rallied behind a Lux bloop single, stolen base, a Cavan Biggio bloop single for a run, and then a Jason Heyward two-run homer (5th) to push things to 9-3.

To close things out, it was Evan Phillips in the 9th, who gave up a single, double, and another double to make it 9-5. After a strikeout, he then walked two batters in a row to load the bases and bring the tying run to the plate.

That led to Daniel Hudson entering to stop the bleeding, and he got a potential double-play ball but Lux had a slow turn, so a run scored and made it 9-6 before he got a fly out to end the game.

Good god.

——

There was one point of concern in all this, and it was significant as Miguel Rojas is desperately needed at short.

——

The cartoons on ESPN are always fun.

======

NL WESTRECORD
Dodgers59-41
Diamondbacks51-49 (8 GB)

Next up will be welcoming in the Giants for a four-game series that starts at 4:10 PM HT/7:10 PM PT/10:10 PM ET. It’ll be probably River Ryan making his MLB debut against Blake Snell.

Tags

About Chad Moriyama

Avatar photo
"A highly rational Internet troll." - Los Angeles Times
Privacy Policy
Copyright © 2014-2023 | Dodgers Digest | All Rights Reserved