Diamondback Series 7/30-8/1

The Dodgers played a 3-game series against the Arizona Diamondbacks right after the all-star break.  At the start of this series, the Dodgers were in 2nd place behind the Giants by 3 games.  The Diamondbacks were in last place in the NL West division by 31.5 games.  Safe to say the Diamondbacks are not a talented ball club.  The Dodgers should easily win this series and they did win 2 of the 3 games.  It should have been a sweep, but the first game was an ugly one.

The first game of the series had a matchup between Dodgers’ Tony Gonsolin and the Diamondbacks’ Zac Gallen.  It was not the start Tony Gonsolin or the Dodgers wanted.  Tony threw 55 pitches in only 1.2 innings of play giving up 5 walks and 2 runs.  We were lucky it was only two runs, because he just couldn’t find the plate. The Dodgers were forced to use 8 bullpen pitchers in this game, all of them throwing an inning, except Bickford who threw 1.1 innings, and Nelson who only got one out and gave up the walk-off hit.  Phil Bickford, Brusdar Graterol, and Alex Vesia each gave up an earned run.  Other than that, the bullpen did its job under tough circumstances.  The Dodgers leadoff hitter Chris Taylor was the star for the offense in this game, going 2 for 5 with a triple, homerun, and 3 RBIs.  Unfortunately for the Dodgers the game went into extra innings, where the Dodgers seem to collapse.  Keeping with this trend, the Dodgers lost in the 10th on a walk-off hit by Asdrúbal Cabrera.  This loss moves the Dodgers to a worse than anemic 1-11 in extra-inning games.

Josiah Gray was supposed to be the game two starter, but since he was traded earlier in the day, this became a bullpen game for the Dodgers.  The Dodgers started the game with Mitch White.  Mitch ended up throwing 3.2 innings, giving up 2 runs on 2 hits and 1 walk while striking out 5 batters.  Wish he could have finished the 4th inning, but he was efficient enough for the Dodgers to be happy.  Garrett Cleavinger came in after and gave up a run.  Victor González, Alex Vesia (who got the win), Joe Kelly, Blake Treinen, and Edwin Uceta came in and shutdown the D-Backs offense closing the game out for the win.  The Dodgers offense came out in full force getting 16 hits in the game.  Everyone except Matt Beaty and Billy McKinney had two hits this game except for Will Smith who had 3.

In the final game of the series, the Dodgers received some reinforcements when Mookie Betts was activated from the IL.  With Mookie back in the lineup after his hip injury and Julio Urías on the mound, the Dodgers were poised to have a big game and they did.  Julio Urías threw 5 strong innings giving up only 4 hits, 7 strikeouts, and walked no one.  Phil Bickford and David Price sailed through one inning each.  With the Dodgers up by 11 runs at this point, they called on Yefrey Ramírez.  Yefrey was called up that day to give the Dodgers some bullpen support after the previous two bullpen draining games.  He came in and threw 2 shutout innings, striking out 2 and walking 1.  The Dodger offense had 14 hits this game that ended up scoring 13 runs.  Many Dodger players had multiple hits, but no one stood out more than AJ Pollock.  Pollock ended up going 4-5 with 2 doubles and 2 RBIs.  He has been on a tear lately, increasing his season average to .304.  That is special given the MLB average is at an all-time low of .241.  The game ended up with a final score of 13-0.

This was a good warm-up series for the Dodgers.  When you play the Division’s last-place team who are one of the worst teams in baseball, you better win the series at the very least.  They did just that and hopefully, this will give them some confidence going into the extremely anticipated matchup against the cheating Houston Astros.  The Astros are the opposite of the Diamondbacks and are one of the best teams in the American League.  With AJ Pollock, Chris Taylor, and Justin Turner all hitting in stride throw in the addition of Max Scherzer pitching on Wednesday, this alone should make for a fun series, but you need to factor in that this will be the first time Dodger fans will be able to confront the scandalized Astros after their cheat enabled World Series win against the Dodgers in 2017.  This makes for must-watch baseball.