Leadoff hitter Corbin Carroll hit balls in the gap and ran around the bases. Slugger Christian Walker smashes home runs into the left field seats. Second baseman Ketel Marte giving big hits and starting double plays. An anonymous pitcher who shuts down his powerful offense.
If this sounded familiar to the Dodgers and a crowd of 46,593 at Chavez Ravine on Wednesday night, it was because it was too familiar: The Arizona Diamondbacks cruised to a 6-0 victory to win two of three games in a series that It was reminiscent of their three-game sweep of the Dodgers in last year’s National League Division Series.
Carroll powered a three-run fifth inning with a two-run triple that helped Dodgers ace Tyler Glasnow suffer his second straight loss; Walker did his usual damage to the Dodgers with a solo home run in the sixth and a double in the eighth, and Marte started a peculiar and timely double play to help get the Diamondbacks out of a two-on, no-out jam in the sixth.
And it was reliever Ryne Nelson who reprized Brandon Pfaadt’s role from Game 3 of that division series. The 26-year-old right-hander began the day with a 2-3 record and 7.06 ERA in seven starts, but shut out the Dodgers. with five hits in five innings, striking out five and walking three.
The Dodgers, at the end of a 13-day, 13-game stretch in which they went 7-6, went hitless in eight at-bats with runners in scoring position and lost their first regular-season home series to Arizona since on April 13. -January 15, 2018, a period of 13 series. It was Arizona’s first shutout at Chavez Ravine since a 13-0 win on Sept. 4, 2017.
Teoscar Hernández gets caught in a run when Arizona catcher Gabriel Montero tags him in the sixth inning
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
The Diamondbacks, with some key players injured and others underperforming, were still two games under .500 (24-26) and eight games behind the Dodgers in the NL West after the victory.
But as they showed during their surprising World Series run last October and again this week in Los Angeles, they could present problems for the Dodgers.
“Oh yeah. I think we know that,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said when asked if Arizona was better than its record might indicate. “It seems like everyone in the league is suffering a lot of injuries, certainly those guys with their starting pitchers.
“But their bullpen has been really good, they put up some good at-bats against us and got some big hits when they needed to. We know how good a ballclub they are. “They certainly play very well with us.”
Glasnow was dominant through four scoreless innings in which he allowed two singles, struck out six, walked none and induced 14 strikes, but the Diamondbacks broke the scoreless tie with three runs in the fifth.
Gabriel Moreno got a walk with one out. Ninth batter Kevin Newman singled to center field to advance Moreno to third, and Newman took second on the throw.
Carroll, the 2023 NL Rookie of the Year who is off to a brutal start in 2024 (he entered Wednesday with a .191 average, two home runs and 14 RBIs), drove a hanging 1-and-2 curveball from Glasnow into the center-right. field space for a two-run triple for a 2-0 lead. He then scored on a wild pitch to make it 3-0.
“I thought the stuff was really good from the beginning and through the fourth inning,” Roberts said of Glasnow, who allowed three runs and four hits in five innings, striking out six and walking one, falling to 6-3 ERA. of 3.09. .
“I was swinging and missing. The command was good. The breaking ball was good. The slider was good. And then in that fifth inning, he just couldn’t seem to find the mechanics of it and he lost control. He…Had Carroll do a leverage count and hung the breaking ball.”
The Dodgers had a similar threat in the top of the fourth when Teoscar Hernandez walked and Gavin Lux doubled to right field to put runners on second and third with one out. But Nelson struck out Andy Pages on three pitches and got Jason Heyward to ground out to first.
The Dodgers failed to score again after putting up two hits with no outs in the fifth when Shohei Ohtani hit a mile-high fly ball to center field, Freddie Freeman struck out on Nelson’s 96 mph fastball and Will Smith flew into the wall. in good.
“We had a couple of situational opportunities that we didn’t take advantage of, even after seeing (Nelson) a couple of times,” Roberts said. “In those situations, he was chasing us with the fastball and we couldn’t catch it. “It’s something really unusual for us.”
The Diamondbacks extended the lead to 4-0 in the sixth when Walker hit a 417-foot solo home run to left-center field off reliever Elieser Hernández, giving the Arizona first baseman 22 home runs in 87 games against the Dodgers, 14 of them entering. Chavez Ravine.
“He’s one of my favorite players,” Roberts said of Walker. “He plays the game the right way. He uses the entire field. He doesn’t give away pitches. He is a gold glove on defense. He runs the bases. He’s one of the guys I really respect as a baseball player. You sure don’t like him when he’s in the batter’s box.”
The Dodgers had one last chance to make a game in the bottom of the sixth when Teoscar Hernandez singled to right and Lux singled to left, making it two with no outs.
Pages followed with a broken ball up the middle that Marte dropped near the second base bag. Marte fielded the ball, stepped on second to force the out and began a run that ended with Hernández being thrown out between second and third for a double play. Heyward hit a fly ball to the left warning track to end the inning.
“There really was nothing our runners could have done,” Roberts said. “We had a chance to build an inning, and then Andy got thrown out, Ketel made a heady play and just ended the play right there.”
Arizona scored twice off reliever Ryan Yarbrough in the eighth when Marte led off with a home run off the left-field foul pole and Walker doubled and then scored on a passed ball.
short jumps
Left-hander James Paxton and right-hander Walker Buehler will start the first two games of a three-game series in Cincinnati beginning Friday night, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto will start the series finale on Sunday, marking the fourth time this season that the right will throw. with five days of rest. …Closer Evan Phillips, out since May 5 with a mild right hamstring strain, will take live batting practice with Class A Rancho Cucamonga on Thursday and is scheduled to begin a rehab assignment with the club on Sunday.
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