Kiké Hernandez and Max Muncy opened with back-to-back home runs and though the Los Angeles Dodgers went on to slug seven homers, they needed extra innings to complete a three-game sweep of the New York Mets with a 8-7 victory. Additionally, it was their 12th consecutive win over the Mets.
The seven home runs marked a season-high for the Dodgers in a single game. With the power display, the team have now hit an MLB-best 46 homers during June. They set a franchise record for a calendar month with 53 home runs in June 2017, and have six more games remaining to potentially tie or break that mark.
Muncy’s blast was at the time team-leading 15th of the season, but Cody Bellinger’s pair of solo shots pulled him even. Hernandez, who tied the game with a home run in the sixth inning, is fourth on the team with 12; Joc Pederson’s go-ahead blast in the seventh gave him 10 home runs, with nine coming in June.
It wasn’t until Austin Barnes’ single which followed Pederson’s home run that the Dodgers had a hit in the game that did not carry over the fence. Consecutive singles by Hernandez and Muncy with no outs in the eighth led to a run scoring on a double play.
Bellinger’s second home run of the afternoon drove in another insurance run that ultimately loomed large given what transpired in the bottom half of the inning.
As encouraging of a start Rich Hill had against the Chicago Cubs in his return from the 10-day disabled list, Sunday’s outing saw regression. He hit three batters, including leadoff man Brandon Nimmo twice, and all three instances the baserunner came around to score.
The first was Dominic Smith being brought in by Kevin Plawecki’s double in the second inning. Then in the third, Nimmo scored on Wilmer Flores’ two-out, game-tying double. Lastly, Nimmo scored in the fifth when Asdrubal Cabrera hit a go-ahead home run.
Hill allowed four runs on five hits, walked a batter and collected five strikeouts over his five innings of work.
After Scott Alexander kept the game tied in the bottom of the sixth inning, Edward Paredes and Josh Fields combined to follow suit in the seventh. Erik Goeddel ran into trouble in the eighth and surrendered a game-tying three-run homer to Plawecki.
It came after Bellinger made a strong throw to third base on a single to center but Jose Bautista managed to avoid a lackadaisical tag attempt by Hernandez, allowing Plawecki to represent the tying run at the plate.
Justin Turner lifted the Dodgers off the mat in the 11th with a solo home run to left field that proved to be the game-winner. Daniel Hudson completed a second scoreless inning of relief to earn the save.
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