Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
Dustin May entered the game out of the bullpen, getting 4 innings of work in which he struck out 5, walked 2 and allowed just 2 singles as the Dodgers wrapped up the regular season with a 5-0 victory on Sunday.
His quick 55-pitch appearance looked pretty solid as the team heads into the playoffs on Wednesday. Speaking of which, after plenty of weird scenarios were laid out, the Dodgers will face the Brewers in the Wild Card Series.
The Brewers lost to the Cardinals, preventing the need for one or two additional games tomorrow, and the Phillies were eliminated as they lost to the Rays.
Naturally the reason this came a bit later than I planned was the Giants and Padres game. Trailing 5-3 entering the bottom of the 8th, the Giants pulled within one with a Wilmer Flores solo shot.
However, a 1-2-3 inning by the Padres in the 9th eliminated the Giants. Thank you for that San Diego.
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To quickly wrap up the Dodgers’ victory, and season sweep of the Angels across the six meetings this season, it was a relatively quiet game as they tied the 2003 Tigers in wins.
AJ Pollock put the Dodgers ahead with a leadoff homer following a 1-2-3 inning by Victor Gonzalez, the 15th of the year and first of two in the game for the outfielder who some many? of us wanted banished last October.
Two more came across in the 3rd after Austin Barnes, Joc Pederson and Pollock all walked against Patrick Sandoval to start the inning. Unconcerned with the struggles of their pitching staff in these meaningless games, the Angels had Sandoval remain out there to get Corey Seager to ground into a double play and bring in the second run of the game.
Sandoval left due to a calf injury one batter later, as the Dodgers scored on an error as Jared Walsh lost a ball in the sun.
As mentioned, Pollock hit another homer later in the game, scoring Pederson following a leadoff single in the 7th.
His 16th of the year, that tied Mookie Betts for the most on the Dodgers this season and was the 10th homer of September for Pollock.
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Pedro Baez, Blake Treinen and Brusdar Graterol entered for the 6th, 7th and 8th innings, allowing just one walk (Baez) combined. Kenley Jansen took over for the 9th and worked a 1-2-3 inning, throwing just 9 pitches. His velocity was at 89.3 on his 7 cutters and 90.1 on his loan fastball, but I don’t really know what to make of that given the small sample size.
When Graterol entered in the 8th, the Dodgers sent Adam Kolarek to right field.
He remained out there for the 9th, but never had to field a ball.
Part of me wants to see the Dodgers actually try this in the playoffs just so I can hear the reactions of the national broadcast.
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Walker Buehler gets the start in Game 1 on Wednesday in Los Angeles.
