Big inning lifts L.A.
WASHINGTON — With all of that October experience, no wonder Justin Turner and the rest of the Los Angeles Dodgers managed to produce a postseason inning unlike any other: seven runs, all scored with two outs and two strikes.
Turner’s three-run homer capped a startling and record-setting rally in the sixth as the Dodgers roughed up $140 million starter-turned-reliever Patrick Corbin and beat the Washington Nationals 10-4 on Sunday night to grab a 2-1 lead in their NL Division Series.
“Just a wild inning,” said David Freese, who entered as a pinch hitter in the sixth and finished with four hits.
Russell Martin and pinchhitter Kike Hernandez added a pair of two-run doubles in the sixth as L.A. became the first team in major league history to score that many two-out, two-strike runs in one postseason inning. Martin tacked on a two-run homer in the ninth.
The Dodgers can advance to the NL Championship Series for the fourth consecutive year by closing the bestof-five NLDS in Game 4 at Washington on Monday, when L.A. sends Rich Hill to the mound against Max Scherzer.
The Dodgers entered the sixth trailing 2-1 after Juan Soto’s two-run homer off winner Hyun-Jin Ryu in the first and Max Muncy’s solo shot off Washington starter Anibal Sanchez in the fifth.
“Just couldn’t seem to get that third out there,” Corbin said. “Just stinks.”
It continued Nationals manager Dave Martinez’s penchant for pushing his starters to appear in relief in
the playoffs, deemed necessary because of his club’s NL-worst bullpen. The strategy had been working.
“Anibal was at 87 pitches. He gave us all he had. We were at a good spot in the lineup, where we thought Corbin could get through it,” Martinez said. “And his stuff was good. … But he had every hitter 0-2. He just couldn’t finish.”
After Cody Bellinger snapped his 0-for-8 start to the series with a single, Corbin struck out the next two hitters. That’s when it all fell apart for Washington.
Freese, the MVP of the 2011 NLCS and World Series for St. Louis, singled to put runners on the corners. Then Martin came through in his first game of this NLDS, a two-run double to put the visitors ahead 3-2.
Hernandez connected on a 1-2 slider from Corbin for yet another two-run double to left-center.
“A couple guys came up and had really big at bats and that’s what we’ve been doing all year,” Muncy said. “That was one of those things where once one guy started doing it, the next cat picked up on it and it just kind of rolled throughout the inning.”