The Los Angeles Dodgers continued their undefeated March with a win over their Camelback Ranch neighbor Chicago White Sox thanks to slugging.
Mookie Betts opened the scoring in the first inning with a leadoff home run against Lucas Giolito. It was Betts’ second homer of Cactus League play, which tied him with Jason Heyward for the team lead.
James Outman continued his hot hitting with a triple off the wall in the second inning to drive in Austin Barnes and put the Dodgers up 2-0. Outman is now batting .462 with a 1.375 on-base plus slugging percentage in 13 at-bats as he makes a strong case to earn a starting job in center field.
Freddie Freeman doubled the Dodgers’ lead with a two-run homer in the fifth inning, and Barnes added a two-out RBI single in the sixth.
Mookie makes it look easy. pic.twitter.com/MCXULxY0ua
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) March 5, 2023
I mean. pic.twitter.com/C0voaiboVF https://t.co/h7FoivN95j
— Chad Moriyama (@ChadMoriyama) March 5, 2023
Chant Freddie’s name and he’ll deliver. pic.twitter.com/6Ot81jrboJ
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) March 5, 2023
Mookie Betts with a Gold Glove play … at second base. pic.twitter.com/NYnlopjmod
— Chad Moriyama (@ChadMoriyama) March 5, 2023
The White Sox broke the shutout in the seventh inning on a Carlos Perez single, and then added three more runs to cut the Dodgers’ lead to 5-4. The runs were driven in by Erik Gonzalez, Bryan Ramos and Gavin Sheets.
That was all the White Sox scored in the game though, and the Dodgers continued to pull away. They responded in the bottom of the seventh with an RBI single from Yusniel Díaz and scored again when Andy Pages reached on an error that allowed Yonny Hernández to score.
Hernández, like Outman, is also making his case to be on the Dodgers Opening Day roster following the injury to Gavin Lux. He went 1-for-2 in the game with two runs scored and is now batting .417 with a 1.000 OPS this spring in 12 at-bats.
In the eighth, the Dodgers added another run for good measure when Devin Mann doubled to bring in Luke Williams, making the score 8-4.
Dodgers pitching staff against White Sox
Julio Urías made his second Cactus League start and pitched four innings while giving up no runs on three hits. Andre Jackson pitched two shutout innings following Urías.
Victor González made his first appearance of Spring Training and allowed all four runs to score while only recording one out. Rubby De La Rosa recorded the final two outs of the inning.
From there, Evan Phillips and Phil Bickford each pitched a scoreless inning to finish off the game.
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