Los Angeles Dodgers flexed their hitting muscles behind Yoshinobu Yamamoto as they beat Philadelphia Phillies 9-1.
The Los Angeles Dodgers have won 14 of their last 17 games and stayed hot on Sunday afternoon at Dodger Stadium.
The Dodgers spread nine runs over seven innings and Yoshinobu Yamamoto gave Dodgers manager Dave Roberts 5.1 quality innings in beating the Philadelphia Phillies 9-1.
Yamamoto's season record goes to 5-4 in picking up the victory. He gave up four hits, no earned runs, walked two, and struck out 10 Phillies. As his pitch count grew, Roberts was monitoring his outing. Will Klein, Edgardo Rodriguez, and Jonathan Hernandez came out of the Dodgers' bullpen and kept Phillies hitters in check.
Hernandez gave up a ninth-inning solo home run to Philadelphia's Bryson Stott. That, though, was all that the Phillies scored as Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper were held hitless.
Dodgers Get to Painter
Phillies starter Andrew Painter was battered by the Dodgers and, after 3.1 innings, Phillies manager Don Mattingly took him out of the game. Painter gave up seven hits, four earned runs, walked one, and struck out three. He also surrendered two home runs to Dodgers hitters.
Painter falls to 1-6 this season and now has a 5.74 ERA.
Los Angeles maintains a stranglehold on first place in the National League West Division with a 38-21 season record. Philadelphia falls to 30-29 and is in third place in the National League East Division.
In the bottom of the second inning with two outs, Alex Freeland doubled to drive in Max Muncy and give the Dodgers an early 1-0 lead. In the bottom of the third, Kyle Tucker, who took some swings in the batting cage before Sunday's game, singled and Freddie Freeman scored as the Dodgers went up 2-0.
Ward Hits First Home Run
Ryan Ward, just recalled from Triple-A, hit his first home run this season. It was a solo blast over the right-field wall and Los Angeles upped its lead to 3-0. Freeland got a pitch to hit and hit it out of the ballpark for another solo home run, his third this season, putting the Dodgers up 4-0.
Alex Call's two-run single in the bottom of the sixth knocked in Tucker and Mookie Betts as Los Angeles was rolling at this point, leading 6-0.
Andy Pages' triple with one out in the home half of the sixth put him on third base. Freeman smoked a sacrifice fly and Pages scored for a 7-0 Dodgers lead.
Muncy's 14th home run stamped another run on the board for Los Angeles. That made it 8-0 Dodgers in the seventh inning. Then, with the bases loaded and no one out in the eighth, Freeman hit his second sacrifice fly of the game. Freeland scored and that was enough of an offensive outburst to give the Dodgers an insurmountable 9-0 lead.
The Dodgers were 2-for-7 with runners in scoring position and left seven runners on base. As for the Phillies, they were 0-for-5 with runners in scoring position and left nine runners on base.
Los Angeles now takes a short plane flight to the Valley of the Sun in Phoenix. They'll open a four-game series against the Arizona Diamondbacks on Monday night at Chase Field in Downtown Phoenix.
(Editor's note: An earlier version of this story had the Dodgers winning 14 of their last 16 games, when it's actually 14 of their last 17. We apologize for the error.)
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