Coors Field may not have been the backdrop but the Los Angeles Dodgers treated Salt River Fields as such, pounding out 17 hits in a 13-7 rout of the Colorado Rockies. Yasmani Grandal and Matt Kemp led the way by going a combined 6-for-6 with two home runs and six RBI.
Kemp improved to 11-for-26 on the spring and now leads the Dodgers with four home runs. His day began in impressive fashion as he singled to lead off the second inning and promptly scored from first base on Yasiel Puig’s double.
That was part of a five-run inning that saw Grandal drive in Kemp with a base hit, Chris Taylor extend the lead on an RBI groundout, Corey Seager hit an RBI double, and Justin Turner knocked a run-scoring single.
Los Angeles then added three more runs in the third inning and five more in the fourth, with Grandal’s grand slam an exclamation point on the outburst. The Dodgers had 15 hits in the first four innings of the game.
The abundance of run support made for a cushy spring debut for Hyun-Jin Ryu, though he allowed the Rockies to trim into their deficit in the second and third innings. He threw 56 pitches over 2.2 innings, allowing two hits and four runs. Ryu had two strikeouts and walks.
In his first relief appearance since being moved to the bullpen, Wilmer Font labored some but got through two scoreless innings. He needed 27 pitches to complete the fifth, then benefitted from a line-drive double play to strand two runners in the sixth inning.
Left-hander Edward Paredes entered in the seventh inning for the Dodgers and he struggled a bit as he gave up four hits and a walk, resulting in two runs in 0.2 innings. It would have been more if it were not for the arm of Alex Verdugo, who threw a runner out a home on a base hit to left.
Manny Bañuelos tossed the last two innings for the Dodgers and gave up one run, but still got the job done as the Dodgers came away with the victory.
