Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
After allowing a pair of runs to open the game, Clayton Kershaw settled down and the Los Angeles Dodgers (10-7) won their second straight game, 7-2, Tuesday at Dodger Stadium.
Offensively, the ball was apparently just flying out of the virtual park as the Dodgers ended up with a four-dong day.
Will Smith got the scoring started with his fourth homer of the year in the second inning, a solo shot off of St. Louis Cardinals starter Jack Flaherty. Mookie Botts and Max Muncy then gave the Dodgers the lead with back-to-back solo shots off of Flaherty in the fourth inning, pushing Los Angeles to a 3-2 advantage. For Botts, it was his fifth in just 17 games as a Dodger while Muncy’s shot was his third of this very fake season.
With Kershaw and a pair of relievers keeping the Cardinals (7-9) scoreless for the remainder of the game following Dodger murderer Paul Goldschmidt’s two-run shot in the first inning, the Dodgers ended up cruising to victory thanks to some insurance late in the game.
Joc Pederson tacked on two more runs with a seventh-inning, two-run homer off of a John Gant change, his fourth of the year. Smith and Justin Turner then came through with an RBI apiece in the eighth.
The Dodgers’ typical everyday lineup now has 25 home runs, with only Corey Seager still left out of the home run column. Also of note from Tuesday, Smith finished 3-for-4 with two runs scored in addition to his two RBIs and Turner walked three times.
“You can’t get too high when things go well, or too low when things go bad. Right now, I’m just happy we got the win,” Smith told the Los Angeles Chronicle, which is absolutely the most generic name this simulation could come up with for a fake newspaper.
Kershaw wound up striking out seven while walking none in his seven innings of work. The eighth inning continued to belong to Caleb Ferguson, who struck out two and walked one in his lone inning of work. After Kenley Jansen threw 18 pitches to get two outs on Sunday, the Dodgers gave him a second straight day off as Brusdar Graterol closed out the game with a nine-pitch ninth inning that included a pair of strikeouts.
While Flaherty held the Dodgers to just one run in 6 2/3 innings on April 7, the righty allowed three runs (all solo homers) in his 5 2/3 innings Tuesday.
Next up, David Price actually does get the start on Jackie Robinson Day in Dodger Stadium, something that made me happy to see for a split second before realizing it was in no way real. The Cardinals send out Dakota Hudson, a rematch of April 9’s pitching matchup in St. Louis that resulted in a 6-1 loss for Los Angeles.
