Blake Snell built on an encouraging return from the 60-day injured list last week to have a dominant performance against the Toronto Blue Jays as the Los Angeles Dodgers clinched a series victory with a 9-1 win.
The Blue Jays entered the night with the lowest strikeout rate among all teams this season, though that didn’t appear to be the case as Snell carved his way through their lineup.
Snell did face some traffic as he allowed three hits, including two doubles, and also walked three batters while throwing 90 pitches.
One of the doubles Snell gave up was to start the third inning. He also walked a batter in the inning but wiggled out of trouble in part because of two strikeouts.
Snell finished with a season-high 10 strikeouts and got through five scoreless innings.
The outing was Snell’s 36th career start with at least 10 strikeouts. His career high is 15 strikeouts, set against the Colorado Rockies during the 2014 season.
Snell exited the game with a 2-0 lead thanks to Max Muncy’s opposite-field home run in the fourth inning. The homer was Muncy’s third in four games since returning from the injured list.
Shohei Ohtani joined the power display with a solo blast in the fifth inning for his 40th of the season. That gave Ohtani a third consecutive season with at least 40 home runs, and fourth in the past five years.
Moreover, Ohtani joined Duke Snider (five; 1953-1957), Gil Hodges (two; 1951, 1954) and Shawn Green (two; 2001-2002) as the only Dodgers with multiple 40-homer seasons.
Ohtani trails only Kyle Schwarber (41) for the National League lead in homers this season.
Dodgers pull away
The Dodgers pushed across six runs in the sixth inning, beginning on a two-run single from Dalton Rushing with the bases loaded that snapped an 0-for-16 skid and was his first hit since July 22.
A pitching change did nothing to stem off the Dodgers’ momentum as Mookie Betts followed an intentional walk of Ohtani with a line drive that skipped off Buddy Kennedy’s glove and carried into left field for a two-run base hit.
Betts to that point improved to 7-for-16 with five RBI over his last four games as he’s seemingly started to emerge from a season-long slump.
Andy Pages capped off the Dodgers’ big inning with a two-run double for his second hit of the inning.
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