Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers scraped together a win against the Phillies, 4-3, despite leaving a billion men stranded on the bases (or 12, whatever).
The offense did get off to a fast start, though, as a Yasiel Puig three-run homer in the first inning vaulted the Dodgers to an early 3-0 lead.
The Phillies came back with a run in the third after Maikel Franco hit an 0-2 fastball up and out of the zone off the right field wall for a double to cut the deficit to 3-1. In the fifth, after a Jimmy Rollins walk and Howie Kendrick single put runners on the corners with nobody out, Adrian Gonzalez drove in a run by hitting the ball hard down to first, necessitating a nice play from Ryan Howard and extending the lead to 4-1. Unfortunately, that was about all for the Dodgers that inning, and they continued to the trend of failure later on, by leaving the bases loaded in the fifth, sixth, and seventh. The team went quietly the rest of the night.
Lucky then that Brett Anderson is now throwing 92-94 mph, up from his season norm of 89-91, and he pitched six innings of one-run in 92 pitches, allowing just four hits and a walk while striking out five. Pedro Baez struck out two in a perfect seventh in relief before turning the game over to the closer duo.
Jim Johnson, who hadn’t given up a homer since April 18 before becoming a Dodger, has now given them up in back-to-back games because sure. The two-run shot by Jeff Francoeur cut the lead to 4-3, and while Johnson HR/FB% when acquired was at his normal levels, it’s now at 100% as a Dodger. Because of course it is.
Kenley Jansen and his mechanical struggles seemed to have been fixed for at least one night, as he was tasked to protect a one-run lead and struck out the side. Decent.
