Stone delivers 5 innings of perfection
LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres weathered a 2-hour, 15-minute rain delay before beginning Saturday night’s game in Chavez Ravine under drizzly skies, 48-degree temperatures and just enough of a breeze to further chill the bones, hardly ideal conditions for a baseball game.
They were nearly perfect for Gavin Stone, the rookie righthander who painted a five-inning masterpiece on the soggy canvas before settling for the best start of his brief career, a 6 2/3-inning, two run, five-hit effort that led the Dodgers to a 5-2 victory before a crowd of 44,582.
Stone, a 25-year-old from Lake City, Ark., who was making his seventh career big-league start and 11th appearance, struck out four, walked one and threw first-pitch strikes to 18 of 25 batters. Of his 88 pitches, 60 were strikes.
He used his five-pitch mix — a sinker that averaged 95.3 mph, changeup (86.6 mph), four-seamer (94.5 mph), cut-fastball (91.7 mph) and curve (83.5 mph) — to induce 11 swinging strikes and 12 called strikes.
Stone retired 15 consecutive batters to open the game before walking Tyler Wade to start the sixth. Eguy Rosario grounded into a 5-4-3 double play, but No. 9 hitter Kyle Higashioka ended Stone’s no-hit bid with a clean ground-ball single to left field.
Jackson Merrill, the 20-yearold rookie who was bumped up to the leadoff spot Saturday, singled to right, advancing Higashioka to third, and Fernando Tatis Jr. lofted an RBI double to left-center to tie the score 1-1.
The Dodgers managed only one run and three hits in five innings off knuckleball-throwing Padres starter Matt Waldron, Mookie Betts giving the Dodgers a 1-0 lead with a two-out RBI single to left field in the fourth.
But the Dodgers pounded lefthander Tom Cosgrove for three runs and three hits in the bottom of the sixth, a rally that started with Max Muncy getting hit by a pitch. Kike Hernandez slapped a one-out single to right, and Gavin Lux grounded an RBI single off the glove of Wade at second base for a 2-1 Dodgers lead.
Betts lined an RBI single to right to make it 3-1, and Shohei Ohtani lofted a sacrifice fly to center off Adrian Morejon to make it 4-1.
Stone gave up another run in the seventh when Ha-Seong Kim doubled and scored on Wade’s RBI single to pull the Padres to within 4-2. But the Dodgers got that run back in the bottom of the seventh when Teoscar Hernandez singled to right, took third on Tatis’ twobase throwing error and scored on Muncy’s sacrifice fly for a 5-2 lead.
Dodgers reliever Daniel Hudson struck out the side in the eighth, and closer Evan Phillips gave up two hits in a scoreless ninth for his fifth save.
The closest the Padres came to a hit in the first five innings was Wade’s soft line drive that Betts, the Dodgers shortstop, made a backhand diving catch of for the first out of the third.
The game took a strange turn in the top of the fifth after Stone struck out Manny Machado with an 86-mph changeup for the first out.
Jurickson Profar attempted a drag bunt before pulling his bat back and taking the first pitch for a ball. Stone’s next pitch, a 92-mph cut-fastball, was up and in and nearly hit Profar, who exchanged words with Dodgers catcher Will Smith, apparently thinking that Stone was throwing at him during a perfect game.
Both benches and bullpens emptied, with players from both teams converging at home plate, but no punches were thrown. Stone got Profar to fly out to center field and Kim to fly out to right, keeping his perfect game intact.