Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
In a rare happening, the Dodgers had back-to-back games in which they easily cruised to a win over the Giants. Tonight they took a 2-1 series lead thanks to a 9-2 win despite Rich Hill exiting after just one inning.
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So about that. After Hill cruised through a scoreless 1st, he came out to warm-up for the 2nd and didn’t feel right, so he was removed after trainers visited.
Not great.
What was great was the timing of the offense to continue to bring the thunder. With two down and two on in the 1st after singles from Justin Turner and Cody Bellinger, Chris Taylor came up with the big blow by fighting back from an 0-2 count to get to 3-2 and then smashing a three-run dong, his sixth of the year.
The power surge continued in the 2nd, as Kyle Garlick smashed his first MLB homer to make it 4-0.
The Dodgers scored for the third inning in a row to start the game behind a Bellinger walk, a CT3 double, an Alex Verdugo sacrifice fly, and a Russell Martin single to make it 6-0.
After taking a break for a frame, the Dodgers scored again in the 5th behind CT3’s seventh dong of the year.
They capped the scoring in the 7th behind a David Freese single and Bellinger’s 24th dong of the year to give the offense nine runs.
So that worked out, but given that the pen has struggled this year and that tomorrow is also a pen game, the starter only getting three outs wasn’t the best of outcomes. However, at least for one night the pen stepped it up.
Dylan Floro was first up and got six outs in a row, ending his night with a strikeout. Yimi Garcia then entered and gave up a solo dong in the 4th, but gave up nothing else in his two innings and notched a strikeout in process.
Caleb Ferguson then entered in the 6th and was a bit messy in giving up a solo homer and hitting a batter, but he also struck out three and certainly looked like his fastball was all the way back. Pedro Baez then had a drama-free 7th, cruising through a 1-2-3 frame on just nine pitches.
That led to Joe Kelly in the 8th, and while he allowed a ground-ball double that bounced down the line, he rebounded to get the next three batters. He then also got a scoreless 9th, allowing a broken bat single, but rebounding with a strikeout and then inducing a double play, looking … dare I say, good.
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The Dodgers are now 50-25 and maintain a 10-game lead over the Rockies in the NL West. They also lead in the NL over the Braves by 6 games and are 1 game ahead of the Twins in the MLB.
They’ll go for a series victory tomorrow in the finale at 4:10 PM HST/7:10 PM PST/10:10 PM EST. Julio Urias will start in what will be more of a pen game, and he’ll face Madison Bumgarner, who will hopefully have to go get a ball out of a ravine.
