The Los Angeles Dodgers tied their season-best winning streak of six games by defeating the New York Mets, 5-1, which also has them in position to complete a series sweep at Citi Field on Sunday.
Mookie Betts broke up Justin Verlander’s no-hitter in the fifth inning on Friday night, but he and the Dodgers didn’t wait nearly as long for their first hit against Kodai Senga. Although, nothing came of Betts’ leadoff single in the first inning.
Betts then took matters into his own hands with an opposite-field solo home run in the third inning that put L.A. ahead 1-0. The home run was Betts’ 27th of the season as he remains well on track to surpass a career high of 35 that was set last year.
The Dodgers remained ahead until Tony Gonsolin made a mistake pitch with a hanging curveball to Brandon Nimmo that he hit for a game-tying solo home run in the fourth inning.
That was the only run Gonsolin allowed, as he threw just 54 pitches over five innings but gave up a bevy of hard contact throughout his start. The outing still was somewhat a step in the right direction as Gonsolin had allowed four runs in three consecutive starts, and gave up seven in the outing before that stretch began.
Dodgers small ball
After Alex Vesia and Brusdar Graterol each pitched a scoreless inning out of the bullpen, Max Muncy’s one-out single in the eighth helped spark a rally.
He was then part of a hit-and-run, with J.D. Martinez’s single putting runners at the corners. It loomed large when David Peralta followed that with a ground ball to first base that Pete Alonso could not make an accurate throw with for what would have been an inning-ending double play.
Fransisco Lindor needed to jump to field Alonso’s throw, then take a second step to touch the base before he could attempt to double up Peralta at first. Peralta beat the throw, allowing Muncy to score what held as the game-winning run.
The Mets threatened in the bottom of the eighth, but Chris Taylor cutting off a ball in the left-center field gap saved a run. New York did have runners on the corners with nobody out after the long single, but Caleb Ferguson retired the next three batters faced. It included ending the inning with back-to-back strikeouts.
The Dodgers created some separation with a three-run ninth inning that was aided by Brett Baty inexcusably dropping an infield pop-up.
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