Dodgers beat Tigers 6-3; Cabrera hits 503rd homer
— Walker Buehler pitched five scoreless innings and the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Detroit Tigers 6-3 on Sunday, overcoming Miguel Cabrera’s 503rd career home run and his first this season.
Cabrera hit a two-run homer off reliever Phil Bickford in the eighth inning to help the Tigers avoid the shutout. Cabrera, who got his 3,000th career hit last week, tied George Brett for 18th in major league history with 1,119 extra-base hits.
Freddie Freeman had a pair of hits and drove in one run, and Mookie Betts scored two runs to help the Dodgers win the series.
Buehler (3-1), who threw his first career shutout in his last outing, needed 23 pitches to get through the first inning. He pitched with a lot of traffic on the bases, but always got out of jams. He scattered six hits and struck out five and walked one.
“Nice to kind of escape one, if you will, but you still want to be better,” Buehler said.
He faced 15 batters through the first three innings, six over the minimum, but retired the side in the fourth and fifth innings.
Buehler hasn’t allowed a run over 14 consecutive innings.
“He grinded,” Freeman said of Buehler. “As much as we want him to throw nine innings and shutout baseball every time, it’s just not going to happen. He gave us five strong innings. He didn’t have his command and his stuff but that’s what good pitchers do.”
Dodgers pitchers combined to strike out 13 batters. Alex Vesia fanned the side in the seventh, and Bickford did the same in the eighth despite giving up Cabrera’s homer.
“We had our opportunities,” Tigers manager A. J. Hinch said. “Elite teams play defense and that’s what that team does.”
Craig Kimbrel earned his fourth save of the year when he entered with a runner on second and one out in the ninth. He got Eric Haase to ground out, but walked Javier Baez to send the tying run to the plate. Austin Meadows popped up to third base to end it.
“We’re winning more than we’re losing, but we just haven’t hit our stride,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “We have a really good team coming in Tuesday (the San Francisco Giants). The last week, I don’t think we’ve played really good baseball, to be honest. We’ve pitched well, which is important. I know our best baseball is ahead of us.”
Jeimer Candelario hit a solo home run off Justin Bruihl in the ninth for the Tigers, who trailed 6-0 through seven innings and have lost seven of their last eight games.
Detroit starter Eduardo Rodriguez (02) allowed eight hits and gave up six runs, four earned, in 5 2/3 innings and was hurt by two errors.