PHOENIX — The Dodgers might have won the trade deadline. But they took their time winning anything else.
Against the Arizona Diamondbacks Saturday, the Dodgers scored three times in the second inning then left their lead in the car and forgot to crack a window. It melted away and the Dodgers had to rehydrate it with a four-run seventh inning that secured an 8-3 win over the Diamondbacks.
The win was their first since Wednesday in San Francisco. The first-place Giants also won Saturday, keeping the Dodgers three games behind them in the NL West.
“It was exciting, obviously,” Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner said of the two-day news cycle surrounding the trade deadline. “We’re excited. We can’t wait. Max (Scherzer) got here today. It was good to see him in the dugout. he looks good in blue. Trea (Turner) is on his way whenever he can, whenever he’s able.
“We’re excited. We have one goal in mind that’s to win another championship and we think those are two cornerstone pieces that are going to help us do that.”
More consistency from the offense would also help do that. Saturday’s win was almost another example of the all-or-nothing-at-all tendency of the Dodgers’ offense.
They scored three in the second on RBI singles by Chris Taylor and Max Muncy and a steal of home by Taylor on the front end of a double steal. But they went 2 for their next 16 against Merrill Kelly after Muncy’s hit.
“I think that’s fair. It isn’t nice when you put up crooked numbers and then go dormant,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “But I don’t think tonight was evident of us giving at-bats away. We just didn’t put up runs in the middle innings. But I thought all night long we took really good at-bats and stressed their ‘pen.”
When the offense came back to life in the seventh, it produced another crooked number — the Dodgers’ 32nd multi-run inning this month and 127th this season.
Kelly’s night ended after a one-out walk of Muncy. Turner sent the second pitch of reliever Stefan Crichton’s short night into the Diamondbacks’ bullpen from whence he came.
The two-run homer was the first of five consecutive hits by the Dodgers. Four consecutive singles produced one run and another scored on a forceout.
“I think our at-bat quality has been pretty good. But hits are not always easy to come by,” Turner said. “We did a good job tonight getting traffic out there and getting some big hits and grinding out at-bats, finding ways to put balls in play and get some runs on the board.”
Given a second chance to protect a lead, the Dodgers’ relief relay did much better.
A night after getting just 1 2/3 innings from starter Tony Gonsolin (who returned to the Injured List Saturday with shoulder inflammation), the $270-million-payroll Dodgers trotted out Mitch White as the first man up in another bullpen game.
White said he didn’t know until he arrived at the stadium Saturday afternoon that he was going to make his first major-league start. He looked like a hero for three innings — and probably shouldn’t have gone much farther.
He retired 10 of the first 11 Diamondbacks he faced. But Asdrubal Cabrera extended him for nine pitches to draw a one-out walk in the fourth and push White’s pitch count into the upper 50s. With lefty Garrett Cleavinger warming up in the bullpen, Roberts left the right-handed White in to face left-handed Kole Calhoun who has hit .167 with no home runs against left-handed pitchers this season.
Calhoun rifled White’s next — and last pitch of the night — into the right-field seats for a two-run home run.
Cleavinger’s delayed arrival didn’t work out very well either. He gave up a leadoff home run to Nick Ahmed to tie the game in the fifth inning.
But a bullpen game that started well with White’s first three scoreless innings ended well. Over the final four innings, Alex Vesia, Joe Kelly, Blake Treinen and Edwin Uceta combined to retire the final 10 batters in order.
“Just have to tip our caps to the bullpen these last two days, grinding and giving us a chance to win,” Turner said. “We got our win today.”
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