Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
Hello everybody, and welcome to the three-game winning streak of the Dodgers, their first of 2017, and also their second series win of the season. And boy was it an exciting way to get it.
Look at this damn chart.
Or look at my damn recap before it all happened.
https://twitter.com/ChadMoriyama/status/858537379685990400
But let’s go back to the start.
The game actually started off great for the Dodgers, with Andrew Toles driving a lead-off homer to center field to put them up 1-0 early.
Cody Bellinger then smashed his first homer of his career in the seventh…
…but everything in between was terrible.
Old friend (for a day) Zach Eflin allowed just two hits and a hit-by-pitch to the Dodgers aside from the homers and wiggled out of what little trouble he did get into. This was honestly a worse offensive showing to this point than the pathetic mess against Matt Cain, because at least Cain was good at one point.
The Dodgers threatened in the third, with runners on the corners and two outs, but Adrian Gonzalez hit the first pitch and weakly grounded out. They seemed to have a rally in the fifth when Chase Utley led-off with a double, but three grounders in a row provided no further damage.
Four hits against Zach Eflin.
Yikes.
Brandon McCarthy started for the Dodgers, and while he wasn’t as sharp as in previous starts, he actually looked quite alright for the most part. The problem was that while he did strike out three and only walked one, he seemed to allow a lot of contact that found holes, leading to eight hits in his five innings, and he was in trouble most of the night.
Bullets were dodged until the fourth, when Max Stassi drove a three-run homer to the opposite field on a sinker that honestly wasn’t that bad of a pitch. The Phillies scored again in the next inning with a morale-breaking two-out jam-shot single to drive in the fourth and final run of the night against McCarthy.
Ross Stripling entered in relief of McCarthy and escaped bases-loaded trouble in the sixth before getting through the seventh with two scoreless innings. Chris Hatcher followed in the eighth and immediately killed all hope of a comeback (sorta) and any momentum from Bellinger’s homer by allowing a homer of his own to the first batter. Hatcher then proceeded to allow two more hard-hit singles before somehow wiggling out of further damage. Hatcher and Pedro Baez have this amazing ability to yank you right back to reality every time you just about think they’re turning the corner.
Grant Dayton, back from the disabled list, made a low leverage appearance in the ninth. He generally looked healthy at 91-92 mph, including getting a routine grounder, routine fly ball, and notching a strikeout in his 1-2-3 frame.
Then something weird happened, as Stipling and Hatcher working out of their jams proved essential when Yasiel Puig, Cody Bellinger, and Justin Turner went back-to-back-to-back to lead-off the ninth and tie the game.
“Absolute madness.”
Shades of the 4+1 game. Amazing comeback, but they weren’t done.
After a Chris Taylor out, Austin Barnes hit a single up the middle. Andrew Toles grounded out for two outs, but Corey Seager extended things by singling to left. That brought up the struggling Adrian Gonzalez, who hunted that left side of the infield for a single all at-bat and sorta got what he wanted with a walk-off quasi-hit off the glove of Maikel Franco that fortunately trickled into shallow left.
It’s a line drive in the box score.
Sports pic.twitter.com/wUjLLcsATv
— Daniel Brim (@DanielBrim) April 30, 2017
With the 6-5 win, the Dodgers get over .500 at 13-12 and are now 8-4 at home. This is better.
The Dodgers go for their first series sweep of the season against the Phillies tomorrow at 10:10 AM HST/1:10 PM PST/4:10 PM EST. The matchup will be Hyun-Jin Ryu (4.64 ERA/5.90 FIP/5.84 DRA), who looks to continue avoiding homers, against Nick Pivetta making his MLB debut, so congrats on the shutout.
