The Los Angeles Dodgers struck early and and in the blink of an eye late to escape with a 3-2 comeback win over the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Dodgers improved to 55-26 as they reached the official midway point of the 2019 season.
Although Robbie Ray was efficient through much of his third-longes start of the season, he surrendered a pair of home runs. The first was to Kiké Hernandez on just the fourth pitch of the game. That gave Hernandez four career home runs off Ray, tying with Madison Bumgarner for his most against a single pitcher.
While Arizona staked Ray a 2-1 lead in the third inning, he squandered it in the sixth. After the Dodgers had just one hit through the first five innings, they ambushed Ray.
Justin Turner jumped on the first pitch he saw and lifted a game-tying solo home run down the left-field line. The homer was Turner’s second since May 11, with both coming during the month of June.
Alex Verdugo kept the pressure on by slapping a double to left field, extending his season-best hitting streak to eight games. Chris Taylor then followed with a drive to right field that skimmed off Adam Jones’ glove and fell for a go-ahead RBI double.
Joe Kelly, Julio Urias, Pedro Baez and Kenley Jansen combined to throw six scoreless innings to wrap up the Dodgers’ win and leave them in position to avoid losing a series for the first time since June 10-11 when they were swept in two games against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
Urias turned in three innings, while Kelly, Baez and Jansen each pitched one. Their effort backed Ross Stripling in what was his first start since April 25.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts targeted four innings and 60 pitches for Stripling, who did reach the pitch count but fell just short in terms of length at three frames.
He didn’t get out of his own way in the first inning, compounding a two-out walk with an error on a pickoff throw to first base. David Peralta’s RBI double pulled the Diamondbacks even. Then in the third, Ketel Marte’s base hit was cashed in by Peralta on a go-ahead single.
Peralta is now up to three RBI through the first two games against the Dodgers, and five in three games dating back to June 5 when he had a walk-off single in the 11th inning.
After entering as a defensive replacement in the sixth inning, Max Muncy led off the seventh and worked a walk to extend his on-base streak to 34 games, good for the longest active streak in the Majors.
