Freeman & Ohtani homer, Dodgers beat Marlins again

Dodgers are 4-0 against the Marlins in the last 8 days.

The Dodgers and Marlins are getting familiar with each other, playing series in back-to-back weeks. So far the Dodgers have won all of them, including Monday’s 7-4 triumph in the series opener at loanDepot Park in Miami.

Freddie Freeman doesn’t necessarily have the gaudy counting numbers due to missing 11 games with left rib discomfort and a sprained right ankle, aggravating two nagging injuries from last October. But the first baseman is healthy now and has been hitting the hell out of the ball, like his two-run home run off Sandy Alcantara in the third inning on Monday.

The second home run of the road trip for Freeman was the 350th of his career, and extended his hitting streak to 10 games. On the season Freeman has seven home runs, seven doubles, and 23 RBI in his 24 games played.

He’s 10 plate appearances shy of qualifying for leaderboards, but among major league hitters with at least 90 PA, Freeman’s .337/.414/.663 line has him second in slugging percentage (behind Aaron Judge) and third with a 194 wRC+ (behind Judge and Pete Alonso).

Freeman, a longtime National League East foe with Atlanta, now has 41 career home runs against the Marlins, tied with Ryan Howard and Ryan Zimmerman for the most by any Miami opponent.

There’s no topping the last game Shohei Ohtani had in Miami, but the Dodgers leadoff man still found a way to fill up the stat sheet on Monday. He walked and stole a base in the third inning, then obliterated a ball 117.9 mph on a line into the right field bullpen for a two-run home run.

That’s the hardest-hit home run in the majors this season, and was caught by Dodgers physical therapist Johnathan Erg, who got a hero’s welcome from his cohorts in the visitors bullpen.

Monday was Ohtani’s second game this season with both a home run and stolen base. He set a major league record with 16 such games last year.

Teoscar Hernández got his two hits in, including doubling home the game’s first run, and he only played three inning. Hernández, the Dodgers leader in games played and starts this season, left the game with left hamstring tightness. Hernández will undergo an MRI exam on Tuesday.

Mookie Betts, who scored on Hernández’s double in the first inning, had two hits on the night. The first four spots in the Dodgers lineup combined for eight hits, five runs scored, and six RBI in this one, including an RBI double by Chris Taylor, who entered the game in place of Hernández.

That made for another rough night for Sandy Alcantara, who allowed five runs in five innings to suffer his second loss to the Dodgers in seven days.

Jack Dreyer opened for the Dodgers and got all four batters he faced. That set the stage for Ben Casparius, who was stretched out to four innings and 19 batters faced, the latter six more than he faced in any other outing this season.

The only run against Casparius scored in the sixth inning, when he allowed hits to his final three batters faced. Alex Vesia relieved the right-hander and got the final two outs of the frame to strand a pair of runners.

The game was lopsided, with the Dodgers leading by six runs after seven innings. But Yoendrys Gómez allowed a three-run home run and only got one out in the eighth inning, turning the game back over to the high-leverage relievers.

Tanner Scott walked his first batter of the year but got out of the eighth inning. That left the ninth inning for Kirby Yates, who tossed a clean ninth inning while pitching three times in four days for the first time this season, earning his first save of the year.

Welcome aboard

Hyeseong Kim played in both games in which he was active in Atlanta, but only in the final inning of each game. Monday was his first start, and he was very much involved in the action.

He singled to left field in the fifth inning against Alcantara for his first major league hit, then stole his second base in as many days. That was immediately followed by Ohtani’s home run. In the sixth inning, Kim dropped a single over the infield to score Andy Pages for his first major league RBI.

A welcome reprieve

Michael Conforto singled in the sixth inning, which snapped an 0-for-31 skid. Upon getting to first base safely, he immediately put his hands to the air, much like a freshly-escaped Andy Dufresne in ‘The Shawshank Redemption.’

Monday particulars

Home runs: Freddie Freeman (7), Shohei Ohtani (9); Augustín Ramírez (4)

WP — Ben Casparius (4-0): 4 IP, 5 hits, 1 run, 2 walks, 5 strikeouts

LP — Sandy Alcantara (2-4): 5 IP, 6 hits, 5 runs, 1 walk, 4 strikeouts

Sv — Kirby Yates (1): 1 IP, 2 strikeouts

Up next

Tony Gonsolin gets the ball in the middle game of the series on Tuesday (3:40 p.m. PT, SportsNet LA), in a rematch with Marlins right-hander Cal Quantrill.