Pujols drives in a run as Dodgers win in his debut
LOS ANGELES » Albert Pujols entered his Blue period. And the Dodgers continue to put theirs behind them.
Pujols went 1 for 4 with an RBI single in his Dodgers debut and Walker Buehler allowed just one hit in seven scoreless innings as the Dodgers beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 3-1 Monday night.
The win was the Dodgers’ sixth in their past eight games, and fifth in the first six games of this homestand.
Pujols’ RBI single in the third inning came against Diamondbacks left-hander Madison Bumgarner, the kind of production against left-handed pitching the Dodgers had been lacking and hope Pujols will provide.
Will Smith did his part in that regard, driving a solo home run over the leftfield wall in the second inning against Bumgarner.
With one out in the third, Mookie Betts drew a five-pitch walk. Justin Turner followed with an extended at-bat. He fell behind 0-and-2, then fouled off four pitches on his way to a 10-pitch walk. Max Muncy bounced into a force out, putting runners at the corners for Pujols, who had flied out on the first pitch he saw in his first at-bat as a Dodger.
This time, he fell behind 0-and-2 to Bumgarner and then simplified things, dropping his bat head on a cutter and sending it back through the middle for a single to collect the 2,113th RBI of his career (third on the all-time list behind Hank Aaron and
Babe Ruth).
The Dodgers only scored once that inning but forced Bumgarner to throw 35 pitches. That might have taken its toll. The veteran left-hander batted in the top of the fifth inning but didn’t take the mound for the bottom half, leaving with an apparent injury.
The Dodgers couldn’t add to their 2-0 lead but Buehler was dominant. He allowed just one hit — an infield single by Josh Rojas in the first inning — and really had just one troublesome stretch.
After striking out Eduardo Escobar to start the fourth inning, Buehler went to 2-and-2 on David Peralta and then missed the strike zone with 10 of his next 12 pitches, walking the bases loaded.
After a visit from pitching coach Mark Prior, Buehler rediscovered the strike zone. He struck out Nick Ahmed on four pitches, then got Tim Locastro on a weak fly out to right field, stranding the bases loaded and preserving the shutout.
Ahmed was the first of 11 consecutive batters retired by Buehler, who breezed through the sixth inning on five pitches and the seventh on eight.
But Victor Gonzalez walked a batter in the eighth and gave up a run on two ground-ball singles through the left side of the infield. Kenley Jansen came in with two outs and runners at the corners.
Jansen got out of the inning with a ground ball that Turner went far to his left to corral and turn into an out.
In the bottom of the eighth, Smith and Gavin Lux got the run back. Smith doubled to the wall in leftcenter then scored on Lux’s two-out RBI single. Over his past 13 games, Lux is 16 for 48 (.333) with six multihit games.
Jansen ran into trouble in the ninth, putting the tying runs on base with a walk and a single. But he got Andrew Young to bounce into a game-ending double play.