Gonzalez is back doing his production number
First baseman, feeling better after DL stint, has three RBIs to lift Dodgers past Marlins.
The box score says Adrian Gonzalez is batting .264. The way Gonzalez sees it, he is batting .333.
For the first month of the season, Gonzalez could not perform to his capability but would not ask out of the lineup. The Dodgers left it to him to decide whether to keep playing, and so he did. He is 35. He never had been on the disabled list. He has been a big bat his whole career, the hitter upon whom his team relied to drive in the most critical runs.
He could not do that in April.
“No legs, no back and bad forearm,” Gonzalez said.
When Cody Bellinger hit the major leagues and kept on hitting, Gonzalez said he felt comfortable taking his battered body to the disabled list for a breather. If the Dodgers did not have a productive first baseman to replace him, Gonzalez would have continued to play through injury.
After two weeks off, Gonzalez is back on. He decided he would count the day the Dodgers activated him as his opening day this season. He has four hits in 12 at-bats since then.
On Sunday he had his first three-hit game and his first three-RBI game this season, leading the Dodgers to a 6-3 victory over the Miami Marlins. The Dodgers have 26 wins — only the Colorado Rockies have more in the National League — after winning three of four games from the last-place Marlins.
“That’s what we should do,” Gonzalez said.
Bellinger, who has moved to left field to accommodate the return of Gonzalez, did not have a good day; he struck out four times. But Yasmani Grandal, like Gonzalez, doubled twice and singled. Joc Pederson hit a home run, his first since opening day, and Brett Eibner delivered a pinch-hit single to drive home two runs.
Brandon McCarthy, who took a perfect game into the fifth inning, gave up one run and three hits over six innings for the victory.
The Dodgers removed him after 75 pitches, a season low, so they could use left-handed reliever Luis Avilan against the Marlins’ left-handed hitters in the seventh inning.
McCarthy softened the suggestion that the Dodgers need a healthy and productive Gonzalez to succeed.
“Need is different,” McCarthy said, “but you certainly want it. We all know how good he is. At his best, he’s a tremendous pain in the ass for other people.”
Gonzalez is the Dodgers’ “butter and egg man.” He delivers. In each of his first four full seasons with the Dodgers, he has led the team in runs batted in.
Bellinger is tied for the team lead now. Gonzalez is tied for seventh.
“That’s what I pride myself on,” he said. “It’s not like I’m putting any more responsibility on myself. That’s what I try to do. My whole career, I’ve been good with runners in scoring position, runners on base. I’ve never been all that good with nobody on.
He is a career .322 hitter with runners in scoring position, a .277 hitter with no one on base.
“I trust him with guys on base,” manager Dave Roberts said.
In his first at-bat Sunday, with two guys in scoring position, Gonzalez pulled a fastball, harder than he had hit any fastball this season. The result: a two-run double, his first extra-base hit since April 25.
Gonzalez wouldn’t say the ball left his bat so rapidly because his body has healed, but he would say he saw no reason why he could not be the run-producing hitter he always has been.
“As long as I’m healthy,” said Gonzalez, who is managing a herniated disk in his back.
“As long as my back holds up, everything is going to be fine. When my back weakens, my legs weaken, and I have nothing, there’s not much else I can do other than fight through it. Fighting through it was not a good recipe, which I found out the hard way.”