by Cary Osborne
Up to the point when Teoscar Hernández reached the batter’s box in the bottom of the sixth inning, Diamondbacks ace Corbin Burnes had 12 scoreless innings against the Dodgers this season in his back pocket.
The scoreless run was the equivalent of the Dodgers swinging with their eyes closed against the 2021 Cy Young Award winner and perennial candidate.
But one could have closed their eyes and used their hearing to tell that Hernández made the sort of contact that was destructive to Burnes’ scoreless run.
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The Dodger right fielder, who came off the injured list on Monday after missing 12 games with a right hamstring strain, hit a three-run home run to propel the Dodgers to a 3–1 win to close out the nine-game homestand.
Hernández led the Major Leagues with 34 RBI when he went on the injured list on May 6. He still led the Dodgers in the category when he returned.
Now he has 38.
“He relishes those spots. He’s not afraid to fail. He can manage his emotions,” said manager Dave Roberts of Hernández in the big moments. “He can kind of fend off a fastball. He can hit and slug or hit soft stuff/ secondary pitches. He can hit to all fields. And that’s what you have to do to be able to drive in runs. If you look at baseball, he’s really in the elite class of the ability to drive in runs.”
Hernández has put the ball in play five times since he has returned.
Each time has been a hard-hit ball (exit velocity north of 95 mph).
The homer was on a 1–2 count, with Burnes a strike away from getting out of the inning. Hernández chased on two pitches early in the at-bat to put him in a hole. Then he made a loop around the batter’s box to collect his thoughts.
“I was just trying to slow the game down, be calm, not trying to expand the the strike zone,” Hernández said. “I was trying to walk around talking to myself to stay calm and just try to hit the ball.”
Hernández dropped the barrel of the bat on a slider and the ball left with a 108-mph exit velocity, ultimately landing in the netting over the center field wall.
Hernández also hit a go-ahead three-run home run against Burnes in their last meeting on Aug. 28, 2024.
The rest of the Dodgers went 3-for-22 against Burnes on Wednesday.
So the Dodgers needed every bit of what starting pitcher Dustin May gave them.
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May allowed a solo home run to Ketel Marte in the third inning. But he kept Arizona off the board his other five innings.
The Diamondbacks were a combined 2-for-15 against his sweeper and four-seamer with eight strikeouts. His eight strikeouts tied a season-high — set in his previous start on Friday against the Angels.
This was May’s first start of the season on four-days’ rest. It was the fourth time in nine starts this season where he has competed at least six innings.
He closed it out in a mirror image of Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s final batter on Tuesday — runners on the corners, two outs, a 3–2 count to Arizona designated hitter Pavin Smith.
Smith struck out on Tuesday.
He grounded out on Wednesday.
This was the fourth time this season Dodger starting pitchers completed at least six innings in back-to-back games.
“It was really big,” May said. “Being able to go out and give six quality was really good.”
Teoscar Hernández returns to his old tricks was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.