Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers easily picked up their 5th straight win, a quick 6-1 victory over the Rockies on Saturday night in Denver. Clayton Kershaw cruised through seven innings, only allowing one cheap run. The defense didn’t let him down this time, and the offense gave him plenty of run support.
The Dodgers picked up right where they left off Friday when they scored 15 runs on 17 hits. They started Saturday’s game with an MLB-best +117 run differential, a four-game winning streak and a magic number of 4 to win the NL West.
Chi Chi Gonzalez brought the baggage of his 8.68 ERA into the third game of four between the Dodgers and Rockies. He lowered his ERA to 7.53 after holding the Dodgers to three runs on four hits in five innings.
L.A. put together a two-run rally with two outs in the top of the first against Gonzalez. Justin Turner singled, Cody Bellinger walked, and red-hot Chris Taylor tripled to right field to give the Dodgers the early lead.
Clayton Kershaw was pitching a great game Monday in San Diego when Trent Grisham homered and the defense laid a big egg behind him. This time he got run support and defensive support in his ninth start of 2020.
Check out this nice play by Edwin Rios at the hot corner. His defense at third has really improved.
The Rockies got one run back thanks to Raimel Tapia who split the middle infielders with a ground-ball double and stole third against Kershaw in the bottom of the 1st. Tapia scored on a Nolan Arenado groundout to make it 2-1.
Despite Tapia’s seeing-eye double, Kersh got a lot of quick outs in another impressive start. His breaking stuff was highly effective against the Rox, his curve and slider looked sharp.
CT3 continued to absolutely crush the ball with a solo dong vs. Gonzalez in the 3rd, his seventh homer on the year and 30th RBI. Taylor hit it out during an interview with Dave Roberts.
The Rockies made another mistake on the base paths when Kershaw picked off Garrett Hampson for the first out in the bottom of the 6th.
The game was not as wild through as the previous night until the 7th. AJ Pollock started it off with a home run against Mychal Givens out of the Rockies battered bullpen.
Then Austin Barnes got hit with a pitch, and Mookie Betts singled to put runners on the corners. A wild pitch allowed Barnes to come home and score. It was a bit scary as three players converged at the plate, but Barnes was able to get his hand in.
Some heads-up baserunning from Betts (let’s be real, his baserunning is always great) led to the Dodgers scoring their 3rd run of the inning to make it 6-1.
Roberts talked Kershaw out of pitching longer in this meaningless game, thankfully. Kersh’s final line: 7 IP, 1 R, 4 H, 6 K, 0 BB, 86 pitches (59 strikes).
Jake McGee pitched a scoreless 8th. Roberts gave Kenley Jansen the ball in the bottom of the 9th. Jansen struck out Ryan McMahon with a 94-mph four-seamer. Rios also made another nice defensive play when he climbed the ladder to snag a liner hit off Tapia’s bat. Jansen looked good in a 1-2-3 9th.
The Dodgers tack on another win and are now 38-15 overall and 22-7 on the road.
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Next up: The Dodgers go for the four-game sweep in their final road game of the regular season Sunday afternoon at Coors Field. Tony Gonsolin (1-1, 1.51 ERA, 2.83 FIP) faces Antonio Senzatela (4-2, 3.30 ERA, 4.42 FIP). First pitch from Denver is at 12:10 PM PST.
