The Los Angeles Dodgers got back in the win column on Wednesday night, defeating the San Diego Padres by a score of 4-2 at Petco Park to pull even at 3-3 on their current road trip.
The story of the night was the Dodgers pitching staff, which led by Kenta Maeda, was able to keep Padres hitters off balance all night. For the fourth straight outing, Maeda struck out nine hitters.
He allowed just four hits, one run and one walk in 5.2 innings of work. Maeda currently has the 11th-best strikeout rate in all of baseball among starters that have pitched at least 80 innings.
What makes Maeda’s outing even more impressive is that he just welcomed a child to the world a few days ago, so he presumably had not been getting much sleep the last few nights when he was away on paternity leave.
The Dodgers offense was not plentiful on the night, but it was timely as they scored three runs in the third to give Maeda a lead and then added an insurance run in the eighth.
Matt Kemp, Logan Forsythe and Cody Bellinger drove in a run each in that third inning. Forsythe has been struggling at the plate lately, and though his run came across on an infield single, it’s nonetheless a welcomed sight.
Then with two outs in the eighth inning, Chase Utley hit a pinch-hit double and scored on a single off the bat of Chris Taylor to swing the momentum back in the Dodgers’ favor and ultimately led to Kenley Jansen earning his league-leading 25th save of the season.
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