Steve Webb
CHAVEZ RAVINE, CA — You know how good the Dodgers are? They can play like absolute garbage for two hours straight and STILL win a major league baseball game. In one of the uglier, most mistake-ridden games of the year, the Dodgers found themselves down 5-1 at the end of seven innings, and somehow inexplicably came back to win the ballgame 6-5 and notch their 103rd win of the season. This one is not going to go in the Dodger time capsule for 2022, that’s for sure. But it’s a W, and it’s another step on the team’s march toward historic greatness.
Grove pitches well, but gets bit by the long ball and poor defense
On the scorecard, it will look like a bad outing for Michael Grove: five runs in five innings of work. However, only three of those runs were earned, and couple of those runs were on solo homers. It was Daulton Varsho and Christian Walker who provided the dingers, and the Dodgers defense that did the rest of the work. Freddie Freeman and Miguel Vargas (playing left) each had an error that led to a run, and the whole thing was not pretty. Still Grove attacked the zone all day, and should be commended for at least eating five innings, which was the whole point of his start in the first place.
Piggy-backing off of the Grove start was Ryan Pepiot and the Dodgers’ righty prospect fared quite a bit better. He pitched three scoreless innings and it turned out to be the critical difference in this ball game.
Dodgers strand an army on the paths
As for the offense, it was a lot of the frustration for the Dodgers’ hitters. It wasn’t that they weren’t hitting; they had 8 hits through the first seven innings. But all during that stretch, the team was searching for a clutch hit that never came. They hit 1-for-12 with runners in scoring position in the first seven innings, and left all sorts of runners on base, leaving them loaded two separate times. If not for a first inning sac fly from Trayce Thompson, it would have been a very quiet early afternoon indeed.
Barnes blast sparks winning rally
However, once again the Dodgers proved that they’ve got a lot more grit than people might give them credit for. It would have been a piece of cake just to lie down in the late innings, get the game over with and take the L. But they refused to do that, and came up a winner at the end of the day.
The rally was started by Miguel Vargas, who had a bit to atone for with his earlier throwing error. The Dodgers’ rookie hit a solid single into right center, the first hit he’s had in a minute up here in the Show. But it was the next hitter that really put the rally into overdrive.
Can we stop and just love on Austin Barnes a little bit? After really pretty much sucking his first three months of the year, Barnesy has been spectacular of late. In his last 15 games, the dude is hitting .365 with four homers. And he came through yet again in this one. On the first pitch he saw from D-back reliever Caleb Smith, Barnes blasted a ball deep to left, depositing it among the crowd in the sparsely populated pavilion.
Arizona lets LA back in the game, Dodgers pounce on the chance
Now suddenly a two-run deficit, this game didn’t look so out of hand anymore. And with still nobody out, the Dodgers just re-loaded and kept things going. Hanser Alberto, hitting second lead-off if you will, reached on a throwing error from third baseman Josh Rojas. Hanser pushed his luck and made it to second on the play, but it turned out to be a great move, because he promptly took third on a wild pitch from new reliever Kevin Ginkel.
Ginkel’s been good for the Snakes this year, but this was just not his day. Perhaps flustered by the Rojas error, he walked the next two hitters, Freddie Freeman and Justin Turner before relinquishing the mound with the D-backs in a major, 405-on-a-Friday kind of jam. Bases loaded, nobody out. 4-5-6 hitters due up for the Dodgers.
Arizona manager Torey Lovullo had seen enough. Ginkel was out and the D-backs’ All-Star Joe Mantiply came in with a nearly impossible task.
Because Mantiply is a lefty, Joey Gallo was called back into the dugout and replaced with pinch hitter Will Smith, the scheduled catcher for the night game. Smith took a good swing at a Mantiply sinker on the first pitch and hit it off the end of the bat, sending a wounded duck into left center. But this particular duck was so wounded that hit dropped in front of the defense for an RBI single. The runners moved station to station and the inning continued.
Trayce Thompson then ripped a shot down the third base line. Rojas was able to stop this one, but the ball kicked away from him, allowing everyone to advance 90 feet. The score was now tied and the bases were still load. Holy cow!
However, Mantiply dug deep and came up with a couple of clutch strikeouts, one of Chris Taylor and the other of pinch hitter Mookie Betts. It looked like he might just Houdini his way out of the mess with the game still tied.
But, up came Miguel Vargas once again. Mr. Vargas, say hello to Mr. Rojas. Vargas put a ball in play that very well could have ended the inning, but once again Josh Rojas couldn’t field it cleanly. The run scored, everybody was safe, and the Dodgers were in the lead. Seriously.
Chris Martin came in in the 9th and pitched a perfect inning for the save. Final score: Dodgers 6, D-backs 5.
Wooboy!
Cans of corn…
- Mad props to Ryan Pepiot for keeping the Dodgers in the game.
- Dave Roberts had some nice things to say about Maury Wills before the game.
- Anderson pitching in the nightcap.
- Dodgers need to win just four more games to set the franchise mark for most wins in a season. Seven more wins and they’d have the best winning percentage ever.
- D-backs have to be pretty demoralized after this one.
