Sports

/

ArcaMax

J.D. Martinez shows Eduardo Rodriguez what he's missing in Dodgers' win

Mike DiGiovanna, Los Angeles Times on

Published in Baseball

LOS ANGELES — Eduardo Rodriguez could have taken the mound in Chavez Ravine for the National League West-champion Dodgers on Monday night in what would have been a tuneup for a probable Game 1 start in the NL Division Series in early October.

Instead, because he nixed a trade to the Dodgers in early August, Rodriguez started for the Detroit Tigers, who are eight games behind Minnesota in the American League Central and 11½ games back in the wild-card race.

The Dodgers gave Rodriguez a taste of what he’s missing out on, as his former Boston Red Sox teammate and almost Dodgers teammate J.D. Martinez crushed a solo homer in the second inning and hit a three-run homer in the third off the 30-year-old left-hander to push the Dodger toward an 8-3 victory before a crowd of 37,239.

Miguel Rojas added a solo homer in the seventh, and Martinez capped a five-RBI game with a two-out RBI single in the seventh, as the Dodgers (92-57) moved to within 3½ games of the Atlanta Braves for the best record in the NL.

Dodgers right-hander Lance Lynn gave up three runs and six hits in five innings, striking out six and walking two, to improve to 12-11 with a 5.92 ERA, leaning heavily on a lively 93-mph fastball to induce 14 swinging strikes among his 93 pitches.

Lynn was working on a three-hit shutout when he allowed two-out singles to Miguel Cabrera and Kerry Carpenter and a three-run homer to left field by Jake Rogers in the fifth, cutting Detroit’s deficit to 5-3. It was the major league-leading 42nd homer allowed by Lynn, tying him for ninth for the most homers allowed in a single season.

 

The Dodgers rallied for a run in the sixth when Max Muncy walked with two outs, Chris Taylor reached on an infield single and Kiké Hernández lined an RBI single to right for a 6-3 lead. Rojas lined his fifth homer to left to lead off the seventh, making it 7-3.

Freddie Freeman walked with one out, stole second — his career-high 20th stolen base of the season — and Martinez, who has 28 homers on the season, grounded an RBI single to center for an 8-3 lead.

With four more hits, Freeman will become the only first baseman in baseball history to accumulate at least 200 hits, 20 homers and 20 stolen bases in one season. He is the fourth player with at least 25 homers, 50 doubles and 20 stolen bases in a season, joining Grady Sizemore (2006), Alfonso Soriano (2002) and Chuck Klein (1932).

Dodgers relievers Alex Vesia, Caleb Ferguson, Shelby Miller and Joe Kelly combined to strike out seven over four hitless innings.

...continued

swipe to next page

©2023 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Comments

blog comments powered by Disqus