Urias enjoys Sunday fun day
Pitcher uses bat, arm to help finish off weekend sweep
SAN FRANCISCO » Dad might have had to get another tattoo.
Julio Urias took a perfect game into the sixth inning and had already driven in three runs himself by then as the Dodgers completed a three-game sweep of the San Francisco Giants with an 11-5 victory Sunday afternoon.
“It would have been really incredible,” said Urias whose father got a tattoo of Julio after the final pitch of the 2020 World Series tattooed on his arm this past winter. “Pitching a perfect game is really tough, and I think it would have been something really incredible to kind of put your hat on.”
Back-to-back sweeps of the Arizona Diamondbacks (four games at home) and the Giants (at Oracle Park) have the Dodgers riding a seven-game win streak as they head to Houston for a two-game series beginning Tuesday. They have won 11 of their past 12, catching and passing the Giants in the standings.
The Giants scored 19 runs in a victory at Cincinnati on Thursday but managed just four in the 19-1/3 innings pitched by Dodgers starters Trevor Bauer, Walker Buehler and Urias in the series sweep.
“You could just see today everything was working. Delivery was really good, clean. His entire mix was working,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of Urias,
who is 7-1 with a 3.03 ERA this season, having allowed three hits or fewer in five of his 10 starts (including the past three).
“Early on in his career, like most young pitchers, you’re kind of really good and then you’re just okay. He just understands that he’s an elite pitcher and when you’re looking around at our starters, the bar is high. He’s right there with those other guys and he shows it every time he’s out there on the mound.”
After the Dodgers scored 10 runs in the second and third innings, Urias provided the game’s only dramatic tension when he took the mound.
The left-hander retired the first 16 Giants batters in order, striking out eight (of an eventual 10).
He might have extended the perfect game a little longer when Mike Tauchman checked his swing on a 1-and-2 breaking ball with one out in the sixth. The call was appealed to third base umpire Ramon de Jesus who ruled Tauchman had not swung.
Urias admitted to “frustration”
over the call.
“I thought that he swung at that pitch. I felt like his bat had crossed that side of the plate, that I got him to strikeout,” Urias said through an interpreter.
The call kept Tauchman alive long enough to squib a ground ball back through the middle. Shortstop Gavin Lux tried to barehand the ball near second base but couldn’t pick it up cleanly. Tauchman’s infield single burst the perfect-game bubble — and it came off the bat at 55.5 mph.
“There was some English on it. I don’t know if it broke his bat,” Lux said. “Especially way over in the shift (to the right of second base), I’m trying to make a play for him there and just didn’t come up with it.”
Urias gave up a two-run home run to Austin Slater before he could get out of the inning. But things were well in hand by then.
Giants starter Anthony DeSclafini came into the game having allowed a total of 12 runs over 53-1/3 innings in his first nine starts this season. He gave up 10 in 2-2/3 on Sunday.
Urias did some of the damage himself. He ripped a double (104.4 mph off the bat) over the right fielder’s head for a two-run double in the second inning then drove in another run with a single off the first baseman’s glove in the Dodgers’ seven-run third inning.
“Today with DeSclafani — really good pitcher, I like him — we just got on the fastball. He left some breaking balls up,” Roberts said. “We had some big hits and kept adding on. Just took advantage of some mistakes.”
Lux and Max Muncy did their part, continuing their hot streaks.
Lux had his second grand slam of the week in the third inning Sunday. Over his past 19 games, Lux is batting .338 (24 for 71) with four doubles, three home runs, 16 RBIs and nine multi-hit games.
Since Corey Seager went out with a fractured bone in his right hand, Lux has replaced him at shortstop, playing excellent defense — and going 11 for 29 with four multi-hit games in his past eight.
Muncy has been even hotter. After the Dodgers’ doubleheader in Chicago on May 4, Muncy was batting .209 with a .799. Since then, he is batting .434 (23 for 53) with three doubles, six home runs and 13 RBIs in 16 games — including a solo home run Sunday.