Everything was working for the Los Angeles Dodgers as they defeated the San Francisco Giants with an 11-5 victory, setting up a rubber match on Sunday. With the win, the Dodgers also moved back into sole possession of first place in the National League West.
Shohei Ohtani started the scoring for the Dodgers in the first inning when he ended his home run drought with a leadoff homer. It was one of two solo shots Ohtani hit in the game.
The Dodgers broke the game open in the second inning as they scored five runs. Teoscar Hernández and Max Muncy started them off with walks before Andy Pages doubled the lead with an RBI single.
Michael Conforto then doubled home another run to give L.A. a 3-0 lead. From there, the Giants intentionally walked Ohtani to load the bases against Mookie Betts, who doubled home two more runs, putting the Dodgers up 5-0. The final run of the inning came on a sacrifice fly from Will Smith.
Hyeseong Kim extended the lead in the third inning with an RBI single, scoring Max Muncy, who reached on a leadoff double.
Ohtani’s second homer of the night came in the sixth inning to put them up 8-0. Will Smith singled with two outs before Hernández blasted a home run to give the Dodgers their 10th run of the game.
With Smith’s single, all starting players for the Dodgers reached base in the game, but a few of them were substitued out for rest later.
The Giants used a position player to pitch in the eighth inning, and Miguel Rojas hit his second home run of the season.
Clayton Kershaw & Dodgers pitching dominant
Clayton Kershaw made his sixth start of the season, and he was simply brilliant. Kershaw tossed seven shutout innings on just 78 pitches and allowing only three hits.
He also added five strikeouts to bring his career total 2,988, and only walked one. His only walk was to the first batter of the game before he truly settled in, and he was able to strand both doubles he allowed.
Michael Kopech tossed a perfect eighth inning while striking out two.
Kiké Hernández entered in the ninth inning, striking out one for the first of his career but also allowing a grand slam to Casey Schmitt that broke the shutout. It was Schmitt’s second grand slam in as many days.
Hernández struggled to record the final out, but he was nearly out of the inning until a throwing error from Rojas kept it going and allowed another run to score. After that, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts turned to Anthony Banda to record the final out.
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