Will Smith had one shot at history Friday night, and the Milwaukee Brewers were willing participants, choosing to pitch to the Dodgers catcher with runners on second and third and two outs in the eighth inning, even after Smith had slugged three home runs in his four previous plate appearances.
Smith did not become the 19th player in major league history and third in franchise history to hit four homers in a game, but his five-pitch walk off Brewers reliever Elvis Peguero loaded the bases for Freddie Freeman, who hit a clutch, tiebreaking two-run single to center field off left-hander Hoby Milner.
The “Freddie!” chants from a crowd of 49,885 at were still reverberating around Chavez Ravine when Teoscar Hernández roped an RBI double to left field to cap a three-run rally that lifted the Dodgers to an 8-5 come-from-behind victory.
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Closer Evan Phillips struck out the side in the ninth for his 14th save, following scoreless relief innings from Blake Treinen and Daniel Hudson, as the Dodgers ended a two-game skid.
Dodgers starter Tyler Glasnow threw six innings Friday night. He was perfect in the first, second, third and fifth innings and would have completed a perfect sixth had second baseman Gavin Lux not bobbled Garrett Mitchell’s two-out grounder for an error.
He was far from perfect in the fourth, the Brewers bunching all three of their hits off Glasnow, including a Rhys Hoskins grand slam, in a five-run rally, leaving the right-hander with an odd but ultimately unsightly final line: six innings, three hits, five earned runs, two walks, seven strikeouts.
The rocky start continued a disturbing trend for a rotation that was supposed to be the backbone of a championship-caliber club.
In seven games since Gavin Stone threw a four-hit shutout against the White Sox in Chicago on June 26, Dodgers starters have been rocked for 30 runs in 30 innings for a 9.00 ERA, a brutal stretch in which they gave up 42 hits, struck out 32 and walked 13.
But thanks to Smith, Glasnow did not suffer a loss.
Smith staked the Dodgers to a 2-0 lead with solo home runs off Brewers starter Aaron Civale to right-center field in the first inning and to left field in the third, giving the Dodgers catcher the third multihomer game of his career.
Glasnow needed only 37 pitches to retire the side in order in each of the first three innings. He threw 31 pitches in the disastrous fourth, which leadoff man Brice Turang opened with an infield single. William Contreras walked, and Christian Yelich struck out.
Willy Adames grounded an RBI single through a huge second-base hole to pull Milwaukee to within 2-1, and Mitchell walked to load the bases. Hoskins then crushed a 98-mph fastball on an 0-and-1 count, driving a grand slam just beyond the reach of leaping center fielder Andy Pages for a 5-2 Brewers lead.
The Dodgers got right back into the game in the bottom of the fourth, Pages leading off with a single to left and Miguel Vargas, making his first start in more than a week, sneaking a 360-foot, two-run homer just to the left of the bullpen gate and over the short wall in left field to cut the deficit to 5-4.
Smith then tied the score 5-5 in the seventh by slamming a first-pitch cut-fastball high off the foul pole in left field for his third home run, the 394-foot shot marking the 22nd three-homer game in franchise history and the first since Max Muncy had three homers against Atlanta on May 4.
Right fielder Jason Heyward was put on the 10-day injured list because of a left-knee bruise before the game, but manager Dave Roberts says he believes the team “dodged a bullet” as an MRI test revealed no structural damage to the knee.
Heyward left Thursday night’s game in the second inning after landing awkwardly while trying to rob Joc Pederson of a home run in the first.
“It kind of aligns with a hyperextension [of the knee], so it should be a week or two,” Roberts said. “But just to be safe, we put him on the IL”
Heyward was replaced on the roster by James Outman, the center fielder who was demoted to triple-A in mid-May after batting .148 with a .516 on-base-plus-slugging percentage, three homers, 10 RBIs and 40 strikeouts in 36 games.
Outman, who finished third in National League rookie-of-the-year voting after batting .248 with a .790 OPS, 23 homers and 70 RBIs in 151 games for the Dodgers last season, hit .279 with a .924 OPS, nine homers and 21 RBIs in 38 triple-A games.
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Roberts said the left-handed-hitting Outman will play center field when he’s in the lineup, pushing Pages to a corner outfield spot, and will play primarily against right-handed pitchers.
Heyward’s injury will open up more playing time for Vargas, who entered Friday with a .308 average and .851 OPS despite starting only 11 games since May 18.
Vargas, the team’s starting second baseman before being demoted to triple A over the All-Star break in 2023 and moving to the outfield at Oklahoma City last summer, also began taking ground balls at third base, a position the Dodgers have struggled to fill since Max Muncy suffered an oblique strain on May 15.
“I think this Muncy thing has been a lot slower than we all hoped,” Roberts said. “Vargy hasn’t played third base in quite some time, but given where Max is, it just made sense to kind of push [Vargas] along and see how it looks to give us another option.”
Sunday starter
The Dodgers will call up hard-throwing left-hander Justin Wrobleski, whose fastball sits between 93-96 mph and touches 98 mph, to start Sunday’s series finale against the Brewers, according to a person familiar with the move but unauthorized to speak publicly about it.
Wrobleski, 23, was an 11th-round selection in the 2021 draft out of Oklahoma State, went 5-2 with a 3.06 ERA in 13 starts for double-A Tulsa and 0-1 with a 4.35 ERA in two starts for Oklahoma City this season, striking out 79 and walking 16 in a combined 78 innings.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Source Agencies
