Dodgers tag Kuhl, complete sweep
runs, and 20-year-old Bellinger blasted a two-run homer.
The Dodgers, driven by the old man and the kid, capped the sweep with a 5-2 win. The Pirates, swept for the fourth time this season, fell to 14-20.
Dodgers starter Kenta Maeda carried a shutout into the ninth inning before Francisco Cervelli ripped a two-run home run to left field.
Maeda allowed five hits in 8⅔ innings. Josh Harrison had three hits, Cervelli had two and the Nos. 3-9 spots in the Pirates lineup produced none. The Pirates missed Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw in the series yet scored six runs in three games.
Since scoring 12 runs May 2 in Cincinnati, the Pirates have 18 runs in their past eight games.
Pirates right-hander Chad Kuhl allowed three runs in a 32-pitch first inning and departed after five innings, charged with four runs on six hits and two walks. His ERA went from 5.54 to 5.81.
Kuhl struggled, and the way the team’s offense is scuffling there is little room for mistakes.
After the Pirates squandered a scoring chance in the first, Kuhl climbed on the mound.
The Dodgers’ first whacks were whiffs.
Joc Pederson and Corey Seager swung through sinkers for strike threes, and the Pirates fired the baseball around the infield to celebrate two outs on eight pitches.
After Justin Turner walked, however, a buzz built in the bleachers. At the plate was Bellinger, the cleanup hitter with a 1.073 OPS in previous 50 at-bats in the majors.
Bellinger fell behind 1-2 and fouled off a fastball clocked at 98.3 mph, the top velocity Kuhl has achieved in 21 major league starts.
The next pitch, a heater up and away, Bellinger banged over the wall in leftcenter field for an oppositefield two-run home run, his sixth homer in 14 games.
Kuhl wasn’t out of the woods.
Yasmani Grandal singled. Chris Taylor walked. Utley sprayed an RBI single the other way. Grandal scored, and third baseman Josh Harrison threw behind Taylor at second base for the third out of an inning that had slipped far from Kuhl’s control.
The Dodgers batted fiveleft-handed hitters in the top seven spots of their lineup, clearly aware of Kuhl’s poor platoon splits. Entering Wednesday’s game, opposing left-handers had a .951 OPS against Kuhl; right-handers had a .626 OPS. Los Angeles was clinical the first time through the lineup, with two walks and four hits — each of them to the opposite field.
Bellinger was a few feet from another home run in his second at-bat. The drive arced into the right-field corner, with Gregory Polanco trying to shoo it foul, and glided right of the foul pole.
More hard contact followed in the fourth. Grandal singled and was replaced by the speedy Taylor on a fielder’s choice grounder. Kuhl tried four pick-offs, unsuccessfully. Utley cracked a run-scoring double up the right-center alley, marking his first multiple-RBI game since Sept. 12.
The Dodgers fifth run scored on Grandal’s RBI single off right-hander Johnny Barbato in the ninth. Grandal, 3 for 3 with a walk in the game, was 8 for 13 in the three-game series.