The Los Angeles Dodgers went into Wednesday’s game swinging cold bats, dropping the first two games of the series against the San Diego Padres. They stayed quiet for most of the night again in the third game at Dodger Stadium, although they eventually broke out and earned a 6-0 victory.
Tony Gonsolin was called up and made the start for the Dodgers and looked dialed in early, striking out the side in both the second and fourth innings. He wound up striking out a career-high eight batters, tossing 4.2 shutout innings while allowing just three hits.
He left with two on and two outs in the fifth inning, but Blake Treinen came in and struck out Fernando Tatis Jr. to escape the jam and keep the game scoreless.
When the Dodgers finally broke through offensively in the bottom of the fifth, they did so with the use of some small ball. AJ Pollock walked to lead off the inning, and then Chris Taylor dropped down a perfect bunt for a single.
Edwin Rios brought the first run home with a single that went off Padres pitcher Zach Davies’ glove, and then Austin Barnes dropped down another bunt to score the second run to make it 2-0.
Cody Bellinger has been struggling as much as anyone to start the year, but he enjoyed a key hit in the bottom of the eighth with an opposite-field double to bring home a much-needed insurance run.
Justin Turner then followed with an opposite-field hit of his own, a three-run home run to break the game wide open. Turner extended his hitting streak to seven games with his 2-for-4 night and now has two homers on the year.
Graterol shows off filthy stuff in eighth inning
A big point in the game came in the top of the eighth inning when Dodgers young reliever Brusdar Graterol entered the game with a runner on first and no outs.
Tatis stepped to the plate representing the tying run, but Graterol got him to hit back to the box and then started a 1-4-3 double play to erase the base runner.
After giving up a single, Graterol then faced Manny Machado, who again represented the tying run. Graterol brought out his best stuff, throwing a 99 mph fastball on inside corner, a 100 mph fastball on the outside corner and then a frisbee slider a foot off the plate to get Machado swinging on three pitches to end the inning.
Kenley Jansen also had an outstanding outing, entering with the bases loaded and no outs in the ninth and getting two strikeouts and a groundout to escape the jam and complete the shutout.
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