Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers and Giants have renewed their rivalry for 2023, and Max Muncy renewed his ownership of the rivals, getting back to looking how he did late last year with the step back and drilling two homers for seven RBI in a 9-1 win to back Julio Urias.
That snaps the three-game losing streak for the Dodgers.
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After finishing filming Killers Of The Flower Moon, Jesse Plemons Logan Webb has returned to the diamond and Mookie Betts was certainly glad, leading off the game with a homer to left on a quality sinker that he looked to be hunting.
After they went down quietly in the 2nd, Mookie and Freddie Freeman combined to corner the runners in the 3rd with singles. That set up Muncy, who has brought back the step back, and immediately found success again in bombing a three-run homer to center to make it 4-0.
The recipient of the run support was thankfully Urias, who continued to look on his game so far this season. After three scoreless innings to start, in which he faced just one over the minimum, he was greeted in the 4th with a Wilmer Flores solo shot that cut the lead to 4-1. The Giants also mounted a rally with a single and walk, but Julio shut that down with a strikeout.
Julio faced no trouble the rest of the way, allowing just a single in his final two innings before being removed due to pitch count and the massive lead: 6 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 2 BB, 8 K, 96 Pitches.
4-1 wasn’t the massive lead, of course, as by the time Julio exited it had ballooned. After stranding a one-out James Outman triple in the 4th, going down in order in the 5th, and sending up the minimum in the 6th after having a single erased by a double play, the 7th proved to be decisive.
Against the Giants pen, an Outman lead-off walk and stolen base looked like it would be stranded after two outs. However, Mookie came up with his third hit of the day and singled to center for a 5-1 lead.
A Freeman single followed to put two on, and Will Smith absolutely jammed one to first, which Flores couldn’t grab for another single to load the bases.
Muncy took it from there, crushing the first pitch he saw the other way for a grand slam and a 9-1 lead. He was 3-for-3 with two homers, a single, and a walk tonight. Perfect.
The Dodgers went down in order the rest of the game, but the damage was done.
Amazingly, the Dodgers pen made it exciting almost immediately. Alex Vesia came in and started throwing batting practice, allowing three singles in a row to load the bases, but he quickly rebounded with back-to-back strikeouts before being relieved.
Yency Almonte then entered and got a fliner to right to escape the massive jam with no damage done. He stayed in for the 8th and got two outs but then hit a man, which led to Andre Jackson entering and notching a strikeout to move things along. He also came out for the 9th, which was thankfully without dramatics as the Giants went down in order.
This is just brutal, man.
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Walker Buehler was bored.
Max!
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The Dodgers are above .500! 6-5.
They’ll go for the series win tomorrow with Dustin May on the bump against old friend Alex Wood at 3:45 PM HT/6:45 PM PT/9:45 PM ET.
