Playing their best baseball of the season, the Los Angeles Dodgers went into Monday’s series opener against the Philadelphia Phillies having won eight of their last 10 games.
But for the first five innings against Philadelphia, they looked like the team that struggled for the first month and a half of the season. Brock Stewart gave up five hits and four runs in the first two innings of the game, and the offense could not muster a hit off Phillies starter Vincent Velasquez.
Cody Bellinger’s one-out walk in the fifth inning represented the Dodgers’ first baserunner since Max Muncy’s walk in the first inning, although he was quickly erased on a double play ball. Yasiel Puig’s single with one out in the sixth was their first hit. That also started a comeback that was complete with a three-run eighth inning.
The Phillies let the Dodgers back in the game with some key errors, but the Dodgers offense was opportunistic in taking advantage of those miscues.
It wasn’t the offense that Dodgers manager Dave Roberts believes led to the win though, as he credited the performance of the bullpen, via J.P. Hoornstra of the Southern California News Group:
“It was kind of seeing-eye grounders, balls off gloves, dropped fly balls, things like that – we had help,” Roberts said. “But to our guys’ credit, we fought. We gave ourselves a chance. For me, the bullpen today was the key.”
Stewart only lasted four innings, so the bullpen was tasked with throwing the final five innings of the game. They came up big, allowing just two hits without issuing a walk to keep the deficit within range for the offense.
A key contributor in that was Yimi Garcia, who was recalled from Triple-A Oklahoma City before the game and tossed two shutout innings, striking out two. Scott Alexander, Erik Goeddel and Kenley Jansen each pitched a scoreless inning of relief, with Jansen earning his 12th save of the season.
The Dodgers bullpen got off to a rough start to the year but has been much better as of late which has been a big reason for the team’s turnaround.
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