Yu Darvish’s debut with the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium hardly went go according to plan. Celebrating his 31st birthday, Darvish surrendered three home runs over six innings. He was removed at the start of the seventh due to back tightness.
He exited with the Chicago White Sox holding a 3-2 lead. Nicky Delmonico’s second home run of the night gave them more of a cushion in the eighth inning.
That insurance run, however, proved futile in the end. Cody Bellinger pinch-hit for Kiké Hernandez with one out in the bottom of the ninth and poked a single into center field.
Logan Forsythe followed with an RBI double that got the Dodgers to within a run of the White Sox. Austin Barnes passed the baton to Yasiel Puig by lining a single into center field, leaving runners at the corners with one out.
Puig worked the count full, fouled off multiple pitches with two strikes, and then swatted a fastball into the left-center field gap for a two-run walk-off double. “I waited for this moment,” Puig told SportsNet LA’s Kelli Tennant on the field.
Puig was mobbed by his teammates at second base and the celebration concluded with the customary Gatorade and ice water shower. “To see his teammates kind of go rush the field for him, as he’s done so many times for his teammates, so good to see,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.
The walk-off win was the Dodgers’ 10th this season, which leads the Majors. The secured a 38th comeback victory and improved to 50-9 in their last 59 games.
“We were down by two,” Hernandez said. “But two runs is not enough for us. I don’t think there’s a big enough lead right now to be like, ‘All right, the Dodgers are out of the game.’ Especially the way we’ve been coming from behind all year long. It’s just an everyday thing now.”
