Teoscar Hernández's longball levitates the Los Angeles Dodgers past the Milwaukee Brewers 11-3.
The Los Angeles Dodgers evened the score against the Milwaukee Brewers.
Behind Teoscar Hernández's six RBI performance and explosive offense, Los Angeles put up double-digit runs against Milwaukee, winning by a final 11-3 landslide.
Sasaki Works Around Tough First Inning; Bullpen Makes History
Just as they were against Justin Wrobleski during Friday's win, the Brewers gave no breathing room for Roki Sasaki in his first inning of work.
The first two Brewers hitters, Brice Turang and Jackson Chourio, hit back-to-back doubles and quickly scored the game's first run.
The inning continued as Sasaki etched a throwing error in his stat line after fielding a comeback grounder from Andrew Vaughn that later allowed Chourio to score.
Following that, Sal Frelick hit an RBI single to Andy Pages in center, but Sasaki escaped the inning as Gary Sánchez tested his luck trying to push his legs to third but was thrown out by Mookie Betts.
First-inning troubles found Sasaki against one of the better teams in the National League, but he quickly turned it around from the second inning on.
He limited his pitch count dramatically and was better at commanding his fastball. He was also finding success in his splitter/slider combination, generating 10 swings and misses in total for his outing.
Back to the fastball velocity, Sasaki topped out at 99.5 mph and remained consistent at 97 mph.
As his mechanics began to settle in, he retired the final 10 batters he faced as he recorded a final line score of five innings and four strikeouts. While also being tagged for three earned runs, he issued four hits and two walks.
Coming into this game, the Dodgers' bullpen had been the anchor of their recent success.
Thirty-two scoreless innings for the Dodgers' bullpen were heavily on the shoulders of Alex Vesia as he came into the sixth inning to replace Sasaki.
Vesia recorded a scoreless inning, pushing the strecth to 33 straight scoreless innings.
Kyle Hurt had a shot at history in his seventh-inning appearance.
Hurt stranded a few runners on base, but worked around that and record a franchise-record 34 straight scoreless innings.
Tanner Scott recorded a scoreless eighth inning of work and newcomer Johnathan Hernández capped off the ninth inning en route to the win.
Dodgers' Offense Ignites After Hernández Go-Ahead Home Run
Brewers right-hander Robert Gasser held the Dodgers at bay through the first three innings.
it wasn't until Pages cranked an RBI double that etched the first Dodgers runs on the board.
Kyle Tucker reached base soon after via a free pass, which set up Hernández with runners in scoring position.
Gasser was unable to fool Hernández on an 0-2 sweeper near the legs as the left fielder launched his seventh home run of the season off the left-field foul pole.
That was the Dodgers' first lead of the ballgame, and they would not look back.
Los Angeles stayed silent offensively for the next three innings, but erupted for three runs in the eighth.
Will Smith picked up an RBI with a single and Hernández collected his fourth RBI of the game with an RBI single of his own.
Miguel Rojas put down a squeeze bunt with runners on the corners that played out successfully, pushing the Dodgers' lead to 7-3.
Hernández picked up his season-best sixth RBI in the ninth inning with a two-run single, and Santiago Espinal put the Dodgers in double digits.
What's Next?
With the win, the Dodgers improve to 32-20 and have won eight of their last 10 games.
Los Angeles forces the early Sunday morning rubber match with Yoshinbu Yamamoto toeing the slab.
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