Roger Arrieta
LOS ANGELES—If you are a fan of high-scoring, tons of offense baseball then Wednesday’s game between the Dodgers and Diamondbacks wasn’t for you. Los Angeles and Arizona staged an old-fashioned defensive, pitcher’s duel in Game 2 of their series with the Dodgers prevailing 3-2 win 10 innings.
Mookie Betts’ 1-out homer in the ninth tied the game at 1-1 and then Will Smith’s single in the 10th gave the Dodgers their 12th comeback win of the year and their ninth straight win at Chavez Ravine. Los Angeles improves their MLB-best record to 28-10 while Arizona drops to 14-23.
GAME RECAP: The game was a showcase for Arizona starter Zac Gallen. The Milkman held the league’s most powerful offense to a single hit during his 7-inning outing. He gave up a leadoff single to Betts in the first and then retired 21 of the next 22 batters he faced. He was pulled out of the game after walking Joc Pederson to lead off the eighth. While Gallen was dealing it for the Diamondbacks, Walker Buehler was putting up his best outing of the year for the Dodgers. Making his first start since being pushed back because of a blister, Buehler went 5.0 innings, didn’t allow a run and struck out six. The only blemishes on his card were a double in the second inning, a walk in the third and a single in the fifth.
Arizona scored their lone run in regulation when Christian Walker hit a 1-out solo homer in the sixth off of reliever Caleb Ferguson. Ferguson also gave up a 2-out single before Blake Treinen came on to finish off the sixth. Treinen, Brusdar “Bazooka” Graterol and Victor González would keep the D-Backs off the board for the final three innings of regulation.
Kenley Jansen entered the game in the 10th and allowed a single run. He was able to get the leadoff hitter to fly out after the courtesy runner was placed on second base to start extra innings. He then walked Kole Calhoun and beaned Ketel Marte to load the bases. Jansen still couldn’t find his control and walked Walker to push across the go-ahead run. Jansen finally found his groove and retired David Peralta and Eduardo Escobar to limit the damage to a single run.
The Dodgers won the game in the bottom of the 10th thanks to small ball – and a defensive miscue from Arizona pitcher Junior Guerra. Max Muncy was placed on second base to start the inning (he made the last out of the ninth) and Dodgers’ manager Dave Roberts made the decision to have leadoff hitter Chris Taylor bunt to push the game-tying run to third base. The move paid off when Taylor pushed a bunt to the left side of the pitcher’s mound. Guerra scrambled to field the ball and fell to his knees when he bent down to collect the bunt. He unexpectedly tried to get Muncy at third base and his errant throw rolled behind Escobar at third base. The ball rolled toward the third-base stands which enabled Muncy to get up and score the game-tying run. Taylor alertly went to second on the play and then advanced to third when Joc Pederson grounded out to short. Smith won the game on the fourth pitch of the next at-bat when he lifted a line drive over the heads of the drawn in infield and outfield.
GAME HIGHLIGHTS:
HE SAID IT: “I thought it was a really well played baseball game. To get pitchers making pitches and defensive players making play it was a fun game to be a part of.”—Dodgers manager Dave Roberts on the low-scoring game.
LUCKY 13: The win extends the Dodgers’ series unbeaten streak to 13. LA won the first two games of the 3-game series with Arizona and is now 10-0-3 in series to start the year. The club record for consecutive series wins to start the year is 14 (1977) and the MLB record is 17 (Cincinnati Reds – 1990).
WHITE SHIRT WAYS: The victory also pushed the Dodger’s home win streak to nine games. They haven’t dropped a game at home since Aug. 12 and are now 13-5 at Dodger Stadium. The 13 home wins is tied for the most in the NL.
OBSCURE STATS OF THE DAY: Los Angeles is now 3-1 in extra-inning games and 4-1 in games played ona Wednesday.
HE SAID IT 2: “There are a lot of different variables that come in to play. It becomes a chess match. There is a little bit of strategy involved and I think it’s fun.”—Roberts on whether or not he likes the new extra-inning rule.
BLISTERING BUEHLER: Buhler finished his sixth start of the season by throwing 71 pitches – 45 for strikes. The odd stat of his outing was that he didn’t throw a first-pitch strike to any of the 19 batters he faced. He was able to get ahead in the count after the first pitch and only allowed one walk all night. Buehler lowered his ERA to 3.60 for the year and now has a 0.970 WHIP.
HE SAID IT 3: “You gotta give credit to the trainers. I thought he threw the baseball really well tonight and I certainly expect him to make his next start.”—Roberts on Buehler’s outing.
BETTS ABOVE .300: Betts had two of the Dodgers’ three hits on Wednesday and his 2-for-4 game pushed his batting average above .300. He joins Corey Seager as the two LA players above the .300 mark. Betts is now hitting .302 while Seager leads the team with a .310 average. Betts also hit his team-leading 12th homer of the year which is second in the NL.
ON DECK: The Dodgers will look for their fifth sweep of the season when they battle Arizona on Thursday at 6:40 p.m. It is another Kershaw Day. Clayton Kershaw climbs the hill with a 4-1 record and a 1.80 ERA in 2020. He is 17-10 with a 2.77 ERA and a 1.065 WHIP lifetime against the Diamonbacks in 211.1 innings pitched. Arizona’s hope to salvage one game in the series rides on the right arm of Luke Weaver who is 1-5 with an 8.23 ERA and a 1.756 WHIP this year. He went up against the Dodgers on Aug 1 and gave up six earned runs and seven hits in 4.0 innings. Weaver is 1-1 with a 9.69 ERA in his 13.0 innings all-time vs. Los Angeles.
