A SWING STATE
Dodgers rally with nine in seventh to win hours after meeting president
WASHINGTON >> The Dodgers met the president in the morning. Then they exercised their veto power Friday night.
Trailing after Max Scherzer dominated them for six innings, the Dodgers bullied the Washington Nationals’ bullpen, scoring nine times in the seventh inning to take a 10-5 win.
The Dodgers sent 12 batters to the plate and had seven hits in the inning, including back-to-back two-run singles by Mookie Betts and Max Muncy and a two-run home run by AJ Pollock.
The win extended the Dodgers’ winning streak to seven games and put them in position to vault over the San Francisco Giants and into first place in the NL West, pending
the Giants’ game in Arizona on Friday night.
Since being no-hit by the Chicago Cubs — the fourth game in a four-game losing streak — the Dodgers have outscored their opponents 38-15.
“I think people are always looking for turning points and you can look at that. I don’t think anyone is thinking about that as far out as we are from that particular night,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I don’t know if it was a wake-up call, a turning point, whatever it was. But I do think that you can see from that point we’ve collectively been really good offensively.
“It’s good winning baseball.” A potential free agent this winter, there has been speculation that the 36-year-old Scherzer (a three-time Cy Young Award winner) could be the big prize available on the trade market before the July 30 deadline. The Nationals’ recent surge (they won 14 of 17 before the Dodgers came to town) has made that less likely. But Scherzer has certainly made himself an even more attractive asset recently. Since the start of May, he has a 1.68 ERA and batters are hitting .167 against him with 88 strikeouts in 64-1/3 innings.
The Dodgers did not buck that trend.
Betts led off the game with a double and was quickly thrown out trying to tag up on a fly ball and advance to third. Just one other Dodger managed to touch second base in six innings against Scherzer. That was Justin Turner who hit a solo home run in the fourth inning (his first home run since June 11).
Turner put his stamp on the game defensively as well. His throwing error in the second inning opened the door for three Nationals runs against Dodgers starter Julio Urias.
Urias gave up three hits in that inning — but no more in his six innings. Still, Scherzer left the game after six innings, eight strikeouts and 100 pitches with a 3-1 lead.
“I don’t think we got great results. But I think we made him work and made him grind through his six innings,” Turner said. “Getting him out of the game in six is a victory. He’s known and wants to compete and go deep into games. So I think we did a great job of getting his pitch count up and battling off some pitches with two strikes. Even though we didn’t get great results, we got that pitch count up and got the chance to have three innings against the bullpen.”
The Dodgers expressed their relief by destroying the Nationals’ relief.
Lefty Sam Clay was up first and he gave up a leadoff double to Chris Taylor, got a fly out then managed to give up an infield single to Albert Pujols, the 41-yearold chugging to first base as third baseman Starlin Castro couldn’t field his weak ground ball cleanly and a run scored.
“Quality at-bat after quality atbat,” Turner said. “I think it’s contagious and you see little things like Albert Pujols grinding with two strikes and fouling balls off, just trying to put something in play and he does.
“Just a lot of little things that inning that all added up to a big number.”
Next came right-hander Austin Voth. He faced four Dodgers, didn’t retire any and they all eventually scored. By the time another left-hander, Kyle Lobstein, came in to face Cody Bellinger, five runs had scored and the Dodgers weren’t done yet.
Taylor had a two-run single in his second at-bat of the inning and Pollock followed with his home run, also in his second at-bat.
Errors by Muncy at second base and Bellinger in center field — the Dodgers’ third and fourth errors of the game — led to two more unearned runs for the Nationals in the eighth and ninth innings before the Dodgers closed it out.
“It’s one of those nights,” Roberts said of the four errors (one on a catcher’s interference call). “Kind of wash those off.”