Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers rode a three-game winning streak into this afternoon’s contest, and they got into an extended homer war with with the Reds. In the end, the Dodgers ended up extending their winning streak to four games behind a dramatic late comeback in their 9-7 victory.
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Today was the story of dongs. A lot of them.
Hyun-Jin Ryu‘s homer problem re-emerged against the powerful Reds, as he surrendered three dongs in just four innings of work, and they accounted for half of the six hits he surrendered. Ryu did strike out five and walked none, but the four runs on the homers just killed his outing, as they tend to do.
Ross Stripling took over for Ryu and didn’t fare much better, as he gave up a run on a sacrifice fly and two more on a homer as well. Stripling lasted two innings, giving up five hits and three runs, which seemed to put the game out of reach.
Yeah.
But the Reds weren’t the only ones hitting homers. In the second, with Chris Taylor on base after an error, Cody Bellinger continued his dong parade with a two-run shot to get the Dodgers to within 3-2.
Three innings later in the fifth, Chase Utley joined in on the fun, hitting a homer to center just out of the reach of Billy Hamilton to get the Dodgers to within one at 4-3.
Still, the Dodgers entered the eighth down 7-3, but the exited it winning. Bellinger got things started with a one-out homer for yet another multi-homer outing.
But no big deal, right? Just a solo shot. But then Yasmani Grandal singled to center, Yasiel Puig drew a four-pitch walk, and Enrique Hernandez had arguably the most important plate appearance of the sequence with a 13-pitch walk.
Sure seemed to me like they were tipping pitches or the Dodgers had their signs.
https://twitter.com/ChadMoriyama/status/874037496346157056
Not that I didn't believe Enrique is good, but he was on every slider during that PA, and the Reds only used like three signs.
— Chad Moriyama (@ChadMoriyama) June 11, 2017
Either way, that loaded the bases with still one out, and Utley followed by working another impressive walk to force in a run and cut the lead to 7-5.
That brought up Seager, who had been struggling a bit since May started, but it didn’t matter yesterday and it certainly didn’t matter today as he took a first-pitch fastball and killed it over the right-center wall for a game-winning grand slam.
Of course, the reason it was game winning is because after Stripling excited, the bullpen halted the homer parade. Chris Hatcher walked a batter but pitched a scoreless inning, and Luis Avilan allowed a hit and a walk but also escaped without damage.
That set things up for Kenley Jansen in the ninth to close out the new lead, and he did so on 13 pitches in 1-2-3 fashion, notching a strikeout and sealing a dramatic come from behind win.
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https://twitter.com/ChadMoriyama/status/874038757703303168
Personality does as well. You're welcome. pic.twitter.com/WgsUlwk6sb
— Chad Moriyama (@ChadMoriyama) June 11, 2017
lol
In the last 8 days the Dodgers have won two games in which they had a win expectancy of less than 3%
— Daniel Brim (@DanielBrim) June 11, 2017
Good.
https://twitter.com/ChadMoriyama/status/874061336585445376
Chase Utley is good again.
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The Dodgers are now 39-25 on the year and 25-10 at Dodger Stadium. They’re also now 1.5 games back of the Rockies in the NL West as the Cubs finally did something useful and beat them.
After a travel day tomorrow heading to Cleveland, the Dodgers play the Indians at 1:10 PM HST/4:10 PM PST/7:10 PM EST. The mound matchup will be Clayton Kershaw (2.20 ERA/3.08 FIP/2.83 DRA), who is looking to just limit the homers at this point, and Trevor Bauer (6.10 ERA/4.09 FIP/4.01 DRA), who has been better than he has pitched but not significantly. It’s a matchup the favors the Dodgers a lot and they probably need to win this one.
