The Los Angeles Dodgers took care of business on the Fourth of July holiday, successfully completing a three-game sweep over the Pittsburgh Pirates at Dodger Stadium.
In what was a rare win without a home run, the Dodgers still pushed six runs across the plate behind the bats of Yasmani Grandal and Chris Taylor, who each accumulated three RBI in the contest.
The club jumped out to an early 4-2 lead after three innings and later added two insurance runs in the fifth, but it wasn’t without an injury scare earlier in the frame.
Justin Turner, leading off the fifth inning and facing Pirates right-hander Tyler Glasnow, was hit by a pitch that deflected off his shoulder and onto his chin.
Turner would stay in the game and later score the Dodgers’ fifth run via a two-run single off the bat of Taylor. He later confirmed that the ball indeed skimmed his chin but also noted that he felt fine afterward, via Kaelen Jones of MLB.com:
“Yeah, shoulder first then it hit my helmet a bit,” Turner said. “I’m good.”
It’s certainly a good sign that Turner remained in the game and didn’t experience any setbacks of the hit by pitch in what initially appeared to be a potentially scary injury for the third baseman. He even stole second base just two pitches later.
Turner had previously missed the first seven weeks of the season while recovering from a fractured left wrist that occurred on a hit by pitch, so losing him for another extended period of time would’ve been difficult to process.
After a slow start to his 2018 campaign, Turner has picked it up as of late, especially in the early portion of July. He enters play on Friday with a .308/.438/.385 slash line in 16 plate appearances this month.
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