Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
On Jackie Robinson Day there was obviously a lot more going on than just the game itself, and the Dodgers always do well to honor the legend.
As for the game, the Dodgers got out to a decent lead and basically hung on the rest of the way, as Tony Gonsolin, Tyler Anderson, and Craig Kimbrel shut the Reds down in a 3-1 victory. Offensively, Gavin Lux was the star again, going 2-for-3 with a triple and a walk as he continues to look like he’s breaking out.
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On the mound for the Reds was Vladimir Gutierrez, who got off to a nice start by cruising through the 1st. However, the 2nd started roughly with a Max Muncy lead-off double, and then Justin Turner followed with a walk. Will Smith then put a charge into the ball to center, but it fell short on the warning track, at least advancing both runners. After a pop-out, Chris Taylor came up big with a lined single to left to plate Muncy for a 1-0 lead, but JT was sent (oddly with Lux coming up) and was out by a good margin.
Speaking of the devil, Lux lead-off the 3rd with a single and eventually scored on a Trea Turner oppo triple to make it 2-0.
After striking out the side in the 4th, Gutierrez struggled in the 5th, allowing a lead-off triple to Lux, hitting Mookie Betts, and then walking Freddie Freeman to load the bases with nobody out. That spelled the end of his night.
Jeff Hoffman entered to limit the damage for the Reds and he did exactly that, getting a strikeout and then a fly out to shallow left. On the verge of escaping without damage, Hoffman walked JT on four pitches to make it 3-0, but he rebounded by getting a fly out to end the threat.
The Dodgers were then unable to add to that total, as Dauri Moreta, Alexis Diaz, and Ryan Hendrix threw a shutout inning each to close the book on the offense.
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On the mound for the Dodgers was Tony Gonsolin, who had a very Tony Gonsolin start. In the 1st and 2nd he worked around lead-off walks, and in the 3rd he gave up a single and two walks to load the bases but escaped. The 4th also saw him getting into trouble as he surrendered a double, but again worked out of it. There was no clean inning for him, but he also gave up nothing: 4 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 2 K, 74 Pitches.
Following the same piggyback strategy as before, Anderson was next up for the Dodgers. After cruising through the 5th, he hit Joey Votto in the brim of the helmet to start the 6th and later gave up two singles to plate a run and reduce the lead to 3-1.
But he bounced back from there, getting clean innings in both the 7th and the 8th, and Anderson is impressing in his rotation auditions: 4 IP, 2 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 4 K, 55 Pitches.
At long last, Kimbrel was then allowed to enter another game, getting a 1-2-3 frame to close things out without drama.
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Everything about the Apple TV+ broadcast was terrible, in my opinion. Almost literally everything. The frame rate was low which cancelled out the quality, the stats were comically wrong, the play-by-play guy’s inability to read the game would make Charlie Steiner blush, and the color commentary was amateurish.
At least they did this.
Oh yeah, the slides are back.
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The Dodgers move to 5-2 on the year with their fourth straight win.
The two teams do it again tomorrow at the same time of 4:10 PM HT/7:10 PM PT/10:10 PM ET with Julio Urias looking to bounce back after a rough debut, and he’ll face Hunter Greene, so it should be a fun one.
