Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
After dropping the opener to the Diamondbacks of all teams, the Dodgers have rebounded with decisive victories to take the series following an 13-0 victory.
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Diamondbacks starter Caleb Smith doesn’t like facing the Dodgers and that certainly continued today. He escaped a scoreless 1st despite two walks, but that wasn’t the case in the 2nd. After an AJ Pollock single and back-to-back walks to Austin Barnes and Billy McKinney, he rebounded by getting Julio Urias to pop out and Mookie Betts to strikeout. He was on the verge, but walked Chris Taylor to force in a run, gave up a Justin Turner single off the glove of Nick Ahmed, and then an Albert Pujols double plated three more to make it 5-0 and knock him out.
Matt Peacock got out the 2nd, then got a scoreless 3rd and 4th. But the 5th was different, as Corey Seager doubled and Barnes singled to corner the runners, and McKinney singling to score a run. After a Julio sac bunt, a wild pitch plated another run and it was 7-0.
Stefan Crichton got the 6th, striking out the first two batters and then hitting Pujols and Seager on consecutive pitches, which was … odd. Pollock took advantage with a double to push the lead to 8-0.
Ryan Buchter entered in the 7th, also striking out the first two batters, but then giving up a single to Mookie, a double to Chris, and then having Turner crush a three-run homer to make it 11-0.
Miguel Aguilar got the 8th, walking Seager and then giving up Pollock’s fourth hit of the game, a double to drive in a run and make it 12-0. It got to a point in the 9th where Bryan Holaday pitched, and was greeted by a Betts homer to make it 13-0.
No updates on the Diamondbacks scoring to this point because, well, there wasn’t any. Urias was dominant at times during his start, only facing batters with RISP due to an infield single and a throwing error from JT. He was removed presumably to save his arm, lowering his ERA to 3.40: 5 IP, 4 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 7 K, 83 Pitches.
Did I mention Mookie started at second base? He did.
Phil Bickford was first out of the pen in relief, throwing just eight pitches in a 1-2-3 frame that came with two strikeouts. David Price followed in the 7th by also getting an eight pitch inning in order, including a strikeout, though Bickford had to be told he was out of the game while on the mound.
Yefry Ramirez made his Dodger debut in the 8th, walking a batter but getting out of it thanks to a double play by Betts.
Ramirez then got a scoreless 9th as well, with two strikeouts to end it.
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64-43 on the year but still 3 games back of the Giants.
After a day off tomorrow to travel back home, the Dodgers will boo the shit out of the Astros at 4:10 PM HT/7:10 PT/10:10 ET with Walker Buehler facing Lance McCullers Jr.
