The Los Angeles Dodgers managed to avoid a series sweep at the hands of the Colorado Rockies by coming away with a 4-2 victory at Coors Field on Thursday.
While Corey Seager, Howie Kendrick, and Yasmani Grandal provided the offensive contributions for the night, Kenta Maeda delivered on the mound and earned the win. He turned in 5.2 innings allowing two runs — on a David Dahl homer — and finished with five strikeouts.
The outing was another strong one from Maeda and came at an opportune time given the heavy load the Dodgers bullpen has shouldered.
Pedro Baez, Joe Blanton and Kenley Jansen followed by Maeda by throwing 3.1 scoreless innings. After his club’s win, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts praised Maeda for his performance, via Bill Plunkett of the OC Register:
“You know what – it’s a grind here,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “To give us five-and-two-thirds (innings), it was a quality, quality start. It’s what we needed. Where we were at going into tonight, for Kenta to take the ball and do what he did was huge.”
Maeda said he was aware of the rotation’s continued injury issues and recent shortcomings, and looks to improve on his outings moving forward:
“I’m aware the pitching staff is a little bit stressed,” Maeda said through his interpreter, the understatement not lost in translation. “What I want to do is keep improving and pitch more innings.”
Entering Thursday’s series finale, the Dodgers were in a stretch where Bud Norris only faced two batters in his start, Brandon McCarthy failed to record an out in the fourth inning, and Brock Stewart was chased in the fifth.
Norris appears headed for the disabled list as his previously called lat strain is now a back strain. The Dodgers haven’t said McCarthy is suffering from an injury as well, but he’s not scheduled to make his start on Sunday.
Meanwhile Maeda, he with the questionable elbow, has been a rock in the rotation for the Dodgers. The right-hander improved to 10-7 with a 3.22 ERA, 3.42 FIP and 1.06 WHIP. Maeda leads the Dodgers with 125.2 innings pitch, and ranks first among National League rookies in wins, innings pitched and strikeouts (125).
