PHOENIX – Each night, Dodgers bench coach Danny Lehmann carries out to the dugout a binder filled with information on the recent usage of the team’s relievers, preferred matchups for each individual reliever and ideal ‘lanes’ in the opposing team’s batting order for those relievers.
That binder might burst into flames before this series is over.
The Dodgers have somehow emerged from the smoke of two chaotic games at Chase Field with an even firmer grasp on the National League West.
Friday’s game ended with the Arizona Diamondbacks’ four-run rally in the ninth inning coming up a run short. Saturday’s game began with the two teams combining for nine runs before nine outs had been recorded.
It went back and forth – and back and forth again – from there before the Dodgers scored twice in the ninth inning to take an 8-6 victory over the Diamondbacks Saturday.
“Tonight, man – a lot going on, a lot to unpack,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “A lot of grit, fight, from both teams. Those guys gave us all we could handle.”
It wasn’t just Saturday. The first two games of this series have featured 33 runs scored, 44 hits, 10 home runs – including one inside-the-park – and 19 pitching changes.
But the two wins to open the four-game clash have guaranteed the Dodgers at least a split of the series. They will leave Chase Field with no worse than the four-game division lead they brought into town. The lead is currently six games over both the Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres who lost Saturday.
“We came into this series knowing it’s going to be an important one. This is kind of like a playoff series,” Dodgers shortstop Miguel Rojas said. “We kind of had to win this series or it’s going to be really tough for us to win the division the way that these two teams behind us have been playing the whole month of August. It’s made us feel the pressure and we definitely came into this series to play them, knowing that it was going to feel like last year. Last year in the playoffs there was a lot of excitement, the stadium and their team was ready to go. Definitely, winning games like this down the stretch for us is going to make it just like a preparation for what we’re going to kind of be facing in the playoffs. Which is a good thing.
“Hopefully we run away with the division in September, but at the same time I want this team to kind of face these games.”
Shohei Ohtani led off Saturday’s game with a home run, his 44th of the season (to go with 43 stolen bases). Mookie Betts followed with a second home run and Freddie Freeman made it back-to-back-to-back home runs, all in the span of four pitches from Diamondbacks starter Merrill Kelly.
It was the 16th time in franchise history the Dodgers have hit three consecutive home runs, but the first time it happened to start a game.
After Clayton Kershaw’s second-inning exit Friday night, the Dodgers needed Saturday starter Gavin Stone to stick around for a while. But he almost didn’t make it out of the first inning.
Corbin Carroll led off by bouncing a drive high off the wall in straightaway center field. Kevin Kiermaier tried to jump up and catch it but didn’t come close. Instead, the ball bounced back towards the infield and Carroll raced around the bases for an inside-the-park home run.
The next three Diamondbacks reached base on two singles and a two-run double. A fourth run eventually scored on a sacrifice fly.
“That’s definitely a momentum-shifter,” Rojas said. “After you see something really special happen, those three homers kind of put you on top of the world. Then all of a sudden, you’re fighting back already.”
Stone settled down after that, retiring 12 of the 13 batters he faced after that rough first inning – with a home run to Lourdes Gurriel Jr. the only interruption.
The Dodgers reclaimed the lead with two runs in the second inning on Ohtani’s sacrifice fly and Freeman’s RBI single then had to reclaim it again in the fifth on a two-out double by Gavin Lux and Max Muncy’s RBI single.
Stone retired eight in a row through the fifth inning. But his pitch count was at 84 – he hasn’t thrown more than 90 in a start since July – and the Dodgers didn’t try to squeeze any more out of Stone.
“It’s his first season, the workload that he’s had this year physically and mentally,” Roberts said of pulling Stone after five innings despite the lack of options in the taxed bullpen. “And his stuff today wasn’t as crisp as it has been, then you’re layering in the stressful innings, the pitch count. I wanted to give those guys a different look. So I just don’t think he had anything left in the tank tonight.”
The different look was two pitchers straight from Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. Brent Honeywell Jr. and Ben Casparius (both called up from Triple-A Saturday) pitched the next three innings.
Honeywell gave up the lead in the seventh inning when he walked the leadoff batter. A sacrifice bunt, wild pitch and sacrifice fly tied the game again.
The Dodgers loaded the bases with one out in the seventh inning but couldn’t break the tie. Tommy Edman ran into an out at second base but the Dodgers still put two on with two outs in the eighth inning. Teoscar Hernandez struck out to end that threat.
Roberts couldn’t help thinking about the specter of extra innings with Evan Phillips his only option behind the two fresh call-ups.
“Yes I was,” Roberts said. “But at some point, you just got to have your chips all in.”
The Dodgers finally put the game-winning rally together in the top of the ninth inning. Back-to-back singles by Will Smith and Gavin Lux set the table. Kike’ Hernandez moved them over with a bunt. With the infield in, Diamondbacks second baseman Luis Guillorme made a leaping grab of Rojas’ line drive. That only delayed the decisive hit – a two-run single dumped into right field by Edman.
“I was just trying to stay short and put it in play,” Edman said. “We had guys on second and third so I was just trying to get something that I could put a bat on. Fortunately, I was able to hit it into the perfect spot where there was no one standing.”
