Jose Urias pitches a one-hitter with 11 strikeouts in 1-0 victory over Seattle.
Urias strikes out 11, Dodgers make single run stand up in one-hit shutout
Mitch Haniger’s dribbler to the right side of the infield left the bat at 53.9 mph, not fast enough to draw a moving violation on most highways. But it was the only hit allowed by the Dodgers’ pitchers Tuesday afternoon.
Julio Urias struck out a career-high 11 in seven scoreless innings, combining with Victor Gonzalez and a revivified Kenley Jansen as the Dodgers beat the Seattle Mariners, 1-0, to earn a split of their twogame interleague series at T-Mobile Park in Seattle.
The win reversed the Dodgers’ first losing streak of the season, back-to-back defeats in San Diego and Seattle. But it didn’t reverse their recent offensive slump. They were held to two hits in seven innings by soft-tossing left-hander Marco Gonzales and have scored just eight runs over their past four games.
National League opponents looking for signs of vulnerability in the defending champions might take hope in the Dodgers’ .203 batting average as a team over the past 12 games and their having scored three runs or fewer in seven of those games.
Playing with one arm tied behind their
backs, though, the Dodgers have still had plenty of arms. Their pitchers have thrown five shutouts in those 12 games and the Dodgers have gone 9-3.
“You know, baseball goes in waves,” Dodgers catcher Austin Barnes said. “We started out pretty hot. We can win games in a lot of different ways. The hitting will come. But our pitchers always keep us in games and that’s important. We’ll scratch those runs across.”
They barely did against Gonzalez who retired the side in order in six of his seven innings.
The lone exception was the third inning when A.J. Pollock led off with a double down the third-base line and moved to third on a ground out.
After Barnes drew a walk, Chris Taylor hit a 107.9 mph bullet up the middle — that was snared by Dylan Moore. It was reminiscent of the play Moore made at third base on a Will Smith liner in Monday’s loss, snuffing out a potential Dodgers rally with two on and two outs in the seventh inning of a one-run game.
This time, Corey Seager followed with an RBI single that drove in Pollock with the day’s only run and the last of the Dodgers’ two hits in the game.
The Dodgers and Mariners combined for just three hits Tuesday — two singles and Pollock’s double. The four combined total bases are the fewest ever in a regular-season interleague game, according to Elias Sports Bureau.
Urias required no more.
The Dodgers left-hander filled up the strike zone while dominating the Mariners’ lineup Tuesday. Urias started 11 of the first 16 hitters he faced (and 13 of 23 overall) with 0-and-2 counts and got 15 swings-and-misses on the 88 pitches he threw.
“I know I’ve said it before as far as the best outing I’ve seen him at different times,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “But I just can’t recall any better from the first pitch to the last pitch — efficiency, command of all three pitches, getting ahead of hitters. He had complete control and command today. The story was the breaking ball — throwing it for strikes, the swing and miss, mixing in the fastball and the changeup.
“Today was just a clinic on pitching.”
Roberts had indeed said similar things after Urias’ first start of the season when he completed seven innings for the first time as a professional, holding the Colorado Rockies to one run on seven hits at Coors Field. In his next two starts, though, he had allowed 16 hits in 11-2/3 innings.
“I felt like we made a lot of adjustments during the week and used those adjustments today,” Urias said through an interpreter. “Just working through my mechanics, making some minor adjustments, working on my curveball, trying to make those adjustments on the curveball. Those are the things that I focused on and those are the things that I felt I cleaned up to have the performance I did.”
Urias walked the second batter of the game, retired the next seven in a row before Haniger beat out his infield single then retired the final 13 batters he faced.
“I love catching Julio. He just gets it and goes,” Barnes said. “His fastball was good. he was driving it in on guys. He was getting ahead of guys. His curveball has taken such a big jump from last year. It’s kind of a wipeout pitch. He didn’t even use his changeup as much as he has in the past but that’s a really good option, too.
“I can’t say enough about what he did out there today.”
The real eye-opener didn’t come until the ninth inning, though. Jansen closed it out, striking out two of the three batters he faced — and hitting 97 mph with two fastballs. According to brooksbaseball.net it was the fastest pitch Jansen has thrown since June 2018.
“I hadn’t seen a couple 97s in a while. It was really good,” Roberts said. “He’s worked really hard to stay within in his delivery, keep his lower half strong and right. It was really exceptional.”