LOS ANGELES – Hitting in the big leagues is harder than ever.
Just ask the Seattle Mariners.
The Mariners, who rank last in the major leagues in batting average and first in strikeouts, came to LA this week and made the Dodgers feel better about their pitchers. The Dodgers allowed just seven runs and 19 hits to the Mariners and completed a three-game sweep with an 8-4 win on Wednesday night.
The NL West-leading Dodgers have responded to the challenge of the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks by winning 10 of their last 13 games, including the last four in a row. Both teams are now four games back.
“What we did in this series with those starters was a masterpiece,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said after taking the Mariners’ starting pitcher out of the game before the end of the fifth inning in two of the three games. “You can argue that the starting staff over there is the best in baseball. Wearing those guys down and getting them into the bullpen was one of our most impressive three-game series in terms of getting the starters.”
This was the expected home game where the Dodgers would get back into shape – at least as far as the daily lineup was concerned.
Health-wise, he’s a good thing. Since returning from his hand injury 10 days ago, Betts has a .300 batting average (12-for-40) with three doubles, two home runs, seven RBIs and five multi-hit games. Muncy is a newcomer, but he’s 4-for-10 with home runs in each of his first two games since returning and two doubles on Wednesday.
Muncy said it was “a relief” to be back in action after his injury break since mid-May.
“Definitely unexpected for me. But it felt good,” Muncy said. “I’m just trying to keep things simple and I’ve had some good results out there.”
Seven of the Dodgers’ 10 hits were doubles and seven of the eight runs were scored with two outs in one inning.
They scored twice on a double by Mookie Betts in the third inning and then again in the fourth when Teoscar Hernandez hit a single, stole second base, advanced to third on a wild pitch and trotted home on Will Smith’s sacrifice fly. Mariners center fielder Victor Robles crashed into the wall to catch the ball.
Shohei Ohtani opened the Dodgers’ big inning by working a walk with one out in the fifth inning. He promptly stole second base, leaving him just one home run and one stolen base shy of reaching his 40-40 season record.
After a wild pitch, Freddie Freeman hit a double for Ohtani and the Dodgers continued from there until they managed a bases-loaded, bases-empty double by Max Muncy in the five-run inning.
“This is the deepest lineup you can find,” said Dodgers starter Jack Flaherty. “What they did to one pitching team after another is impressive. It was just one after another, relentless.”
The Mariners allowed Flaherty to score their first run of the game in the second inning – more or less by accident.
Flaherty hit Randy Arozarena with a pitch. Arozarena stole second base and advanced to third on a single by Justin Turner, one of only five hits Flaherty allowed in his 5⅔ innings.
Flaherty has played four times for the Dodgers since being signed at the trade deadline. He describes them as “okay for me.” The Dodgers have won three of those four games and Flaherty has a 3.22 ERA. But he has only gone six innings once.
“I feel like I’ve gotten to a good point and I’ve kind of fallen into the weirdest slump of the whole year,” Flaherty said. “I’m kind of grinding, not getting far in games, not being quite as sharp, just missing. Tonight was all of those things – just missing, falling behind, getting into bad counts. I was still able to get guys out and make shots, which is good.”
The Mariners also needed help scoring their second run, scoring in the sixth inning thanks to an error by second baseman Gavin Lux and a walk by Anthony Banda with the bases loaded. But in the three-game sweep, the Dodgers held the Mariners to a .196 average (19 of 97) with 26 strikeouts, cementing their low ranking in both categories.
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