Through much of the first five weeks of the regular season, the Los Angeles Dodgers were carried on offense by Yasmani Grandal and Matt Kemp. On Saturday they both factored in to a rout of the Colorado Rockies, but in vastly different fashion.
Kemp went 2-for-3 with two runs scored, a home run and two RBI. The homer was the 21st of Kemp’s career at Coors Field, which tied him with Eric Karros and Sammy Sosa for second-most by a visiting player. Barry Bonds (26) holds the record.
Meanwhile, Grandal was 1-for-5 with one run scored, an RBI and two strikeouts. His RBI didn’t come on a hit, but instead a fielder’s choice to second base when the Dodgers had runners at the corners with nobody out in the seventh inning.
By beating out a potential double play, Grandal was on base when Kemp lined a two-run homer to left field, which extended the Dodgers’ lead to 7-4. They went on to score eight runs in the inning to blow the game open.
Following their win, Kemp gave credit to Grandal for the Dodgers having a big inning, via Ken Gurnick of MLB.com:
“If he doesn’t beat that out, we don’t have that big inning and we fed off that,” said Kemp. “Grandal knows he’s not the fastest guy out there, but he’s busting down the line and making something happen. He got a ribbie out of it, and we just went from there. One of those plays that was the turning point in the game.”
After Kemp’s blast, the Dodgers later scored on Breyvic Valera’s two-run single that came with the bases loaded, and Chris Taylor’s two-run triple. The triple was Taylor’s sixth this season, which leads the National League and is tied for most in baseball.
Saturday marked the first time the Dodgers scored eight runs in a single inning since pushing across the same amount in a road game against the Philadelphia Phillies in August 2016.
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