The Los Angeles Dodgers began their homestand in a positive note on Monday night, earning a 2-1 victory over the Chicago Cubs, who just beat them two out of three games at Wrigley Field last week.
As is usually the case when the Dodgers and Cubs meet, runs were at a premium. The Dodgers only’ runs came on solo home runs by Kiké Hernandez and Chris Taylor, while the Cubs scored in the ninth inning on a sacrifice fly against Kenley Jansen.
Part of the reason the Dodgers were able to keep the Cubs offense at bay was because of the performance starter Kenta Maeda turned in. He tossed seven shutout innings while only allowing three hits and a walk. He collected an impressive nine strikeouts.
This was Maeda’s third start since coming off the disabled list, but it was by far his best, which he attributed to feeling healthy, via Kaelen Jones of MLB.com:
“Ever since coming off the DL, I think feeling-wise, it was the best I’ve felt,” Maeda said. “Overall, it was a much better feeling coming into this game than the other ones.”
It was pretty clear that Maeda wasn’t feeling 100 percent in his first two starts back against the Texas Rangers and Cubs. He gave up a combined 10 hits and five runs while only striking out three compared to eight walks in 8.2 innings.
Maeda was pitching perhaps the best baseball of his Dodgers career before suffering the injury, so it was nice to see him be able to return to that form on Monday against Chicago.
If he can continue to pitch at that high of a level, then Maeda will be a big part of the Dodgers rotation moving forward and the talks of potentially moving him to the bullpen will go away.
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