The Dodgers are tied with the Philadelphia Phillies for the best record in baseball heading into the final three weeks of the regular season, and it hasn’t guaranteed them much, not with San Diego and Arizona breathing down their necks in the National League West.
“We’re feeling the Padres and Diamondbacks right behind us, but there’s nothing wrong with a little bit of pressure — I feel like it’s going to help us get to the playoffs and perform well in the playoffs,” shortstop Miguel Rojas said. “But we want to secure one of the top two spots [in the league], so we can’t really let our foot off the gas pedal right now.”
The Dodgers did ease up on the throttle Saturday night, but only after they shot out of the gates like a Top Fuel dragster, scoring six first-inning runs en route to a 7-2 victory over the Cleveland Guardians in front of a crowd of 48,690 in Chavez Ravine.
With San Diego losing to San Francisco and Arizona losing to Houston, the Dodgers (85-57) pushed their division lead to five games over the Padres and 6½ games over the Diamondbacks with 20 games to play.
Shohei Ohtani made the first and last outs of the first inning, but in between, the Dodgers pounded Guardians starter Gavin Williams and reliever Pedro Avila for six runs and four hits, a rally that was set up by three straight one-out walks issued by Williams.
Tommy Edman sliced a two-run, ground-rule double to left, and a Gavin Lux sacrifice fly to left made it 3-0. Rojas slapped an RBI single down the right-field line for a 4-0 lead, and Andy Pages, filling in for the injured Teoscar Hernández, greeted Avila with a two-run homer that traveled 432 feet to center for a 6-0 lead.
The Guardians trimmed the deficit to 6-2 in the second on Lane Thomas’ two-run homer off Michael Grove.
Dodgers left-hander Justin Wrobleski threw two scoreless innings, escaping a two-on, one-out jam in the third and a based-loaded, two-out jam in the fourth, and Mookie Betts pushed the Dodgers lead to 7-2 in the bottom of the fourth when he drove a two-out solo homer to lefthis 16th of the season — off right-hander Scott Barlow.
Betts has six homers and 23 RBIs in 24 games since returning from a left-hand fracture on Aug. 12, and the Dodgers are 16-8 in those games.
The Guardians threatened again in the fifth when Josh Naylor hit a one-out single and took third on pinch-hitter Kyle Manzardo’s double off the center-field wall off Blake Treinen. But the Dodgers right-hander escaped the jam by striking out Daniel Schneemann with an 84-mph sweeper and Thomas with an 85-mph sweeper.
Alex Vesia threw a scoreless sixth, Michael Kopech threw a scoreless seventh, and Brent Honeywell threw a scoreless eighth and ninth to complete a bullpen game for the Dodgers, which held Cleveland hitless in 13 at-bats with runners in scoring position.
The Dodgers got some good news on the injury front before the game, with Hernández saying he will avoid the injury list after getting hit on the left foot by a pitch Friday night and ace Tyler Glasnow throwing off a bullpen mound for the first time since he went on the injured list because of elbow tendonitis in August.
Manager Dave Roberts feared Hernández would have to go on the IL after being hit by an 81-mph slider and exiting the game in the first inning, but an X-ray after the game and a CT scan Saturday showed no major damage, and the swelling subsided.
“Very relieved,” Roberts said. “Obviously, if it was a fracture, that was probably going to be the end of the season for him, and it would have been a huge loss. But with the imaging and information we received, we feel good about [him being] day to day.”
Hernández is batting .266 with 28 home runs and 87 RBIs, and his loss would have left a gaping hole in the middle of the lineup.
“I thought it was worse, honestly, when I got hit — after a couple of hours, the pain wasn’t going away,” Hernández said on Saturday. “But it’s way better than it was [Friday] night. Nothing is broken, and maybe Monday or Tuesday I’ll be back on the field. … Thank God it was an off-speed pitch and not a fastball.”
Glasnow threw about 20 pitches, all fastballs, during a session Roberts said “went very well.” He will throw a more aggressive bullpen Tuesday, mixing in his secondary pitches, after which he will likely throw a simulated game of two or three innings, leaving time for the right-hander to make two abbreviated regular-season starts before the playoffs.
“Just looking at the calendar, there’s only a few opportunities, so we might be in that situation where it’s three or four innings,” Roberts said. “You have to take what you can get at this point, if he’s healthy, and just go from there.”
Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who is scheduled to return from a rotator-cuff strain Tuesday night, is also expected to be limited in his first few starts back, which, combined with Glasnow’s short starts, could require an overworked bullpen to throw more innings.
“It’ll be tough, but honestly, it’s nothing we haven’t done all year,” Roberts said. “If that’s the case, then we’ll figure it out.”
Short hops
Reliever Brusdar Graterol, sidelined for the first four months of the season because of a shoulder injury and the last month because of a hamstring strain, completed his two-appearance rehab stint with triple-A Oklahoma City with a scoreless inning on Friday. The right-hander will be activated either Sunday or Monday, Roberts said.
