The Los Angeles Dodgers provided Walker Buehler with early run support and earned a 15-6 victory in the first game of a day-night doubleheader against the San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park.
The win snapped a three-game losing streak for the Dodgers. It was also the club’s fourth win of the season against their rival, evening the season series to four games apiece.
Chris Taylor and Chase Utley opened up the first inning with back-to-back walks. That paved the way for Cody Bellinger and Joc Pederson to deliver consecutive RBI-singles — giving the Dodgers an early 2-0 lead.
Giants starting pitcher Chris Stratton struggled with his command and issued a bases-loaded to Max Muncy, his fourth of the inning, to allow the Dodgers to increase their lead to three.
Taylor led off the second inning with his fourth home run of the year. Utley followed suit with a double and was later driven in by Bellinger, who recorded an RBI-triple to bring the Dodgers’ run output to five.
Pederson added an RBI-triple of his own to score Bellinger, which subsequently ended Stratton’s outing. He recorded just four outs and yielded six earned runs while accumulating more walks (four) than strikeouts (three).
Roberto Gomez was summoned out of the Giants bullpen and promptly struck out Austin Barnes and Yasiel Puig to end the inning. After his at-bat, Puig was removed from the game due to left hip soreness.
Gomez returned to the mound in the third but didn’t escape unscathed. Utley tallied his second hit of the day — an RBI-double — to extend the Dodgers’ lead to 7-2. Seager then drove him in with a single before the right-hander could record the final out of the inning.
Gomez tossed a scoreless fourth inning of work before yielding another RBI-single to Seager in the fifth, further padding the Dodgers’ lead to seven runs.
Derek Law was the second Giants reliever to enter the game and quickly recorded the first two outs of the sixth inning. But a defensive blunder by Blanco allowed Kyle Farmer and Muncy to score following a single by Taylor. Utley then doubled in Taylor to push the Dodgers’ lead to 12-2.
The Dodgers added three more runs in the eighth on an RBI-single by Bellinger and a two-RBI double by Pederson, their third and fourth hits of the day, respectively.
Buehler ran into some early trouble of his own. He allowed a leadoff single to Gregor Blanco, who later advanced to second base for his second steal of the season.
After retiring Brandon Crawford, Buehler walked Andrew McCutchen to put two runners on base. Pablo Sandoval then cashed in with an RBI-single to put the Giants on the board. McCutchen later scored on a wild pitch, but Buehler limited the damage from there and exited the first inning with a lead intact.
From there, Buehler was on cruise control. He allowed just three more hits over his final four innings of work and struck out five batters without issuing another walk.
Pedro Baez looked to redeem himself from a disappointing outing on Friday, but his struggles continued. After allowing back-to-back singles to his first three batters faced, Giants pinch-hitter Alen Hanson cleared the bases with a three-run home run to cut the Dodgers’ lead to 12-5.
The Dodgers then added the three insurance runs and Adam Liberatore, Josh Fields and Scott Alexander combined to limit the Giants to one run to secure the 15-6 victory.
