Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
After winning six games in a row and then 10 games in a row earlier, the Dodgers have now won three games in a row and 20 of 23 after a 8-0 victory over the Padres. While this is amazing, it would have to go on basically double this length to match the 42-8 run of 2013, which kinda puts that into impressive perspective.
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Coming back to the now where Rich Hill always lives, apparently he’s now back to being a quality pitcher as he looked in control of everything even early on, even the cutter.
He also got control back of his curve.
Hill tied a career-high with 11 strikeouts, but most importantly he allowed just one walk in his seven shutout innings. He also allowed just four hits, three of which were an infield single, a “double” that Trayce Thompson lost in the sky, and a rather weakly hit bloop single.
The Dodgers got things started early in the first, with Chris Taylor drawing a walk, Corey Seager singling, and Austin Barnes being hit by a pitch to load the bases. With two down, Logan Forsythe notched an infield single, which plated it a run.
In the fourth, a Forsythe double and a two-out intentional walk to Thompson set the table for … well, Hill.
The next inning, it got started early with back-to-back homers for Seager and Justin Turner.
What really broke it open was the seventh, when the bases were loaded behind an Barnes and Forsythe singles, and then a Enrique Hernandez walk. It looked for a moment like the Padres would get out of the jam, but Taylor hit a two-out grand slam to break it open.
From there, it was turned over to Brock Stewart, who looked excellent again. Stewart pitched two perfect innings with two strikeouts to seal the game.
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Enrique’s catch and Hill’s ‘Not Bad’ face.
Joe Davis and Orel Hershiser discuss cuisine.
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The Dodgers are now 55-28 overall and 22-17 away from home, which is a 107-win pace. Unfortunately the Diamondbacks beat the Rockies 6-2, which means the lead in the NL West is still 3.5 games. The Astros also won, so the Dodgers are still a half game back for the best record in baseball.
The sweep will be on the line against the Padres tomorrow as the Dodgers start at 10:40 AM HST/1:40 PM PST/4:40 PM EST. Kenta Maeda (4.15 ERA/3.88 FIP/4.06 DRA) will look to continue his run of high quality against the suddenly decent Jhoulys Chacin (4.76 ERA/4.46 FIP/5.02 DRA).
