Roger Arrieta
LOS ANGELES—Just when you thought the 2020 couldn’t get any stranger, we give you Game 58 of the 60-game season. The Dodgers wound up beating the Angels 7-6 on Saturday, but the second-to-last game of the season will be remembered for a 52-pitch inning, a power outage and a home run that wasn’t a home run until an outfielder tipped it over the fence.
In the end, Los Angeles came away with its 42nd win of the season and added to their record-setting homer pace. The Dodgers smashed out another three homers but had to survive a ninth-inning, Alex Wood-fueled scare to record their fifth straight win over the Angels this season.
Los Angeles is now 42-17 on the year. Their 42 victories are seven more than any other NL team and three more than any team in MLB. The Angels are now 3-3 in their last six games and fall to 26-33 on the year.
GAME RECAP: The second game of the series was a battle of consecutive run strings. The Dodgers scored three runs to start the game and then the Angels countered with four in the third. LA would retake the lead with four runs that were scored in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings before the Angels beat up on Wood in the ninth to get to within one at 7-6. Adam Kolarek was called upon to put out the Wood fire and save the victory.
The bottom of the first started the strange nature of Saturday. LA put up three runs on two hits but it took Angels’ starter Julio Teheran 52 pitches to get out of the inning. He had 6-pitch counts to six of the first seven batters as he struggled to get out of the first. The biggest piece of news for the Dodgers in the top of the first is that Mookie Betts was beaned on the hip and had to leave the game after the bottom of the first because of precautionary measures. Betts scored the first run of the game after he advanced to third on a Justin Turner single and Max Muncy filled the bases with a walk. Bellinger made it to back-to-back walks and he earned his 30th RBI for the free pass. Will Smith continued “Smithtember” with a run-scoring single to right field. Joc Pederson finished off the 3-run inning when he hit a ground ball to first baseman Albert Pujols. Pujols fielded the ball and attempted to start a 3-6-3 inning-ending double play but his throw sailed wide and pulled shortstop Elliot Soto off the bag.
Dodgers’ starter Tony Gonsolin breezed through the first two innings on Saturday. He retired the first six batters he faced and needed only 19 pitches to get through the six outs. Gonsolin ran into trouble in the third when he gave up hits to the first three batters in the inning and then allowed a triple and sacrifice fly to push three more runs across the plate and bring the score to 4-3. Gonsolin went 6.0 innings on the night and gave up all of his earned runs and four of the seven hits he allowed in that fateful fourth. He faced the minimum number of batters in the fifth and sixth frames.
Pederson started the 4-run streak, all of which came courtesy of the long ball, when he connected on a 2-0 fastball and hit it into the fourth row of the stands just inside left-field foul pole. The “oppo” blast to start the sixth inning was his seventh of the year and first since Sept. 4. The Joc Pop also scored Smith who led off the inning with a walk.
The game went from strange to bizarre after the final out in the 2-run sixth. After Kiké Hernández flew out to end the inning, the lights went out in the stadium and caused a black out effect. The delay lasted for 25 minutes and had the players asking if the game could be ended right there. The lights were eventually turned on and the game finished off with the final three innings of play.
As if the game wasn’t odd enough, Edwin Ríos long fly ball in the bottom of the seventh added to the lore of the game. He went inside-out on an off-speed pitch and used his strength to send it to dead center. Angels’ center fielder Jo Adell broke back on the ball and went to make a leaping catch at the wall. The ball proceeded to rattle in-and-out of Adell’s glove and popped over the wall for Ríos second homer in as many games. Unfortunately for Adell it was the second time the scenario has played out in 20020. He also got the assist on Aug. 9 against Texas (google it, it’s even worse than the one on Saturday).
Smith finished off the Dodgers’ scoring when he went yard to lead off the eighth. The 380-foot solo shot to left field was his eighth of the year and second of the weekend.
The 7-4 lead appeared to be a comfortable margin but then Wood entered the game in the ninth and promptly gave allowed three of the first four batters to reach base. David Fletcher’s 1-out double forced Dodger’s manager Dave Roberts to pull Wood from the game and bring in Kolarek to end the late-game rally. Kolarek earned his first LA save by getting Albert Pujols to line out to right and Shohei Ohtani to ground back to the pitcher.
GAME HIGHLIGHTS:
HE SAID IT: “It was weird, it was dark and I couldn’t see anyone in the dugout.”— Edwin Ríos on the power outage after the sixth inning.
HE SAID IT 2: “That was spooky. It got real dark, real fast.”—Tony Gonsolin on the power outage.
HE SAID IT 3: “I don’t think we could have called it at that point because it wasn’t natural (the delay wasn’t cause by something from nature – i.e. rain or lightning) it would have been a suspended game and we would have had to finish it out.”—Roberts on whether they had the option to call the game after the lights went out.
IF THE PLAYOFFS STARTED TODAY: Another day, another new first-round opponent projection. If the regular season were only 59 games, the Dodgers would host Milwaukee in the wild card round of the 16-team playoff format. The Brewers blanked the Cardinals 3-0 on Saturday and are now 29-30 for the year. The Giants, who lost 6-2 to the Padres, own an identical 29-30 record but lose because of record against divisional opponents. The Brewers, Giants, Cardinals and Phillies are still in the mix for the first-round opponent so fans are just going to have to wait until the end of Sunday’s game to find out who LA will play on Wednesday. The Dodgers might not even know until Monday because the Cardinals still have two games to make up after Sunday.
SERIES STUFF: Make it 15 series wins for the Dodgers in 2020. The wins in the first two games of the 3-game series mean that LA will end the regular season with a 15-1-4 record in series. Hopefully the Dodgers will finish the year with only one series loss.
PARTY LIKE IT’S 1906: The win on Saturday means that the Dodgers will finish 2020 with the best winning percentage of any NL team since 1906. The 42 wins give LA a .700 winning percentage which would be the highest for any team in the NL in the regular season since the Cubs went 116-36 (.763) in 1906. If the Dodgers win on Sunday that would up their winning percentage to .717 which would tie the Seattle Mariners who won a modern-day record 116 games in 2001.
OBSCURE STATS OF THE NIGHT: Pollock made his 14th start of the season in center field. That’s good news for LA as they are now 13-1 when he is penciled into the lineup in CF. Can you name the inning that has seen the most runs scored in Dodger games this year? Give yourself a pat on the back if you answered the fourth frame. LA scored four runs in the fourth on Saturday which brings the combined total of runs scored by LA and their opponents in the fourth to 86. The Dodgers are being outscored 44-42 in the frame – one of only two innings they are being outscored (9th – 17-9).
GOOSE IS GOOD ENOUGH: Gonsolin went 6.0 innings which marks his fifth straight appearance where he has gone at least 5.0 innings. Unfortunately, the 4-run third cost him his streak of not allowing more than three earned runs in a game. Despite all that, he earned his second win of the season. The biggest takeaway from Gonsolin’s eighth start of the year is that he should be a factor in the postseason pitching staff. He is now 2-2 with a 2.31 ERA and a 0.842 WHIP in 46.2 innings pitched this year.
HE SAID IT 4: “I think he just didn’t locate the fastball. He did some damage control, regrouped and gave us 6 innings which was good…he’ll be on the roster. We just have to figure out in what capacity.”—Roberts on Gonsolin’s outing and whether he will be on the postseason roster.
POWER, POWER, POWER: It was kind of ironic that the power went out in the stadium that hosts the most powerful team in baseball. The three long balls on Saturday brings the team’s total to 116 for the year. That is 14 more than the Braves who are No.2 in MLB. The total of 116 (1.966/game) would put them on pace to hit 314.56 homers in a regular 162-game season. That would break the MLB record for yard shots in a single season (307) which was set by the Minnesota Twins last year.
NEED POWER IN THE STADIUM, JUST ASK EDWIN: Ríos continued his impressive power average numbers. He has a homer in three of the last four games he has played which is pretty tasty in itself but when you consider that has had only four at-bats during that stretch it becomes even more eye popping. Ríos has eight long balls in 75 at-bats this year. If you are scoring at home that figures out to one HR for every 9.37 at-bats. To put that into perspective, if he was an everyday player and got 480 at-bats in a season, he would finish with a crisp 51 homers.
HE SAID IT 5: “He gave me a 2-1 heater low and in. I was able to go inside-out on it and it felt pretty good.”— Ríos on describing his fielder aided homer in the seventh
A DIRTY 30: Turner upped his on-base streak to 30 games on Saturday. He went 1-for-3 and is now hitting .311. The 30-game on-base streak is the longest active streak in MLB. Turner only needs to reach safely in 55 more consecutive games to break the all-time MLB record of 84 set by Ted Williams.
ON DECK: The Dodgers will finish off the regular season with a day game. LA will host the Angels on Sunday at 12:10 p.m. The Dodgers are 10-2 in day games this year. The starter for LA is TBD but Roberts hinted at the fact that Dustin May will get a full workload at some point during the game. The Angels are tentatively scheduled to send lefty Patrick Sandoval to the mound in their final game of 2020. Sandoval is 1-4 with a 5.56 ERA and a 1.324 WHIP this year. He faced the Dodgers on Aug. 14 and allowed five runs on six hits and struck out five in 6.0 innings of work.
