The Los Angeles Dodgers staved off elimination with a 7-2 win over the San Francisco Giants in Game 4 of the National League Division Series, setting the stage for a winner-take-all matchup at Oracle Park on Thursday.
Julio Urias will take the ball for the Dodgers on normal rest and looks to deliver another big-game performance. He contributed on both sides of the ball in a Game 2 victory, collecting an RBI single and holding the Giants to just one run over five innings pitched.
It amounted to Urias’ seventh career postseason win, which tied him with Madison Bumgarner for the most wins by a pitcher in the playoffs at 25 years or younger.
“I think Julio has, for a long time now, been kind of underrated and now people just are giving him his credit,” Mookie Betts said after Game 2. “He’s always been really good. I think this year he just was really consistent. I think that’s been the difference.
“Obviously in the postseason he’s always been really good, but throughout the season he’s had his ups and downs, but this year he’s just stayed consistent, one of our best arms and he proved it tonight.”
Urias’ solid outing came on the heels of an outstanding regular season that saw him reach a personal milestone of 20 wins and set new career highs in several other categories.
The left-hander picked up where he left off from the 2020 postseason in which he thrived as a reliever and recorded the final out of the Dodgers’ World Series-clinching victory over the Tampa Bay Rays.
“Just seems like Julio has this weird but like old soul about him,” Betts said after Tuesday’s 7-2 win. “He just gets on the mound like he’s been there, he’s done it and he’s got so much confidence in himself that it just kind of oozes out on everyone else.
“He may not say a whole lot, but you can just kind of see it. I’m sure he’ll have that confidence oozing out and we just got to win one game.”
Buehler: Fun to watch Urias ‘evolve’
Walker Buehler, who also has a reputation of being a big-game pitcher, has enjoyed watching Urias take the next step in his career. “He got up well before me and then when I came up he was on a shoulder rehab,” Buehler began.
“And the past year or two, I think he and I have gotten really close and it’s been fun to watch him go from last year, ‘Hey, we’re going to use you all the time and throw two or three innings,’ to this year getting a full year of, ‘You’re going to make 30 starts and see what you can do.’
“Wins 20 games for the first time in a long time here. So it’s been cool to watch him kind of grow and evolve into that role and I don’t think we could have any more confidence in someone going than we do in Julio on whatever day it is.”
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