LOS ANGELES – It was Game 7 of the 2017 World Series revisited at Dodger Stadium on Sunday and this time, the home team embraced the result.
Sunday’s victory hardly made up for the fateful loss of a championship to the Houston Astros eight years ago, but it did finish off a sweep of the San Diego Padres as the Dodgers regained their grip on first place in the National League West.
Freddie Freeman and Andy Pages hit first-inning home runs off Padres right-hander Yu Darvish, before Mookie Betts saved the day with a go-ahead home run in the eighth off right-hander Robert Suarez as the Dodgers earned a 5-4 victory.
A bullpen looking for a hero found one when left-hander Alex Vesia (3-2) recorded the final four outs for the win, striking out Manny Machado swinging to end the game.
Darvish was the Dodgers’ pitcher for Game 7 on Nov. 1, 2017, when the Astros scored twice in the first inning and three more times in the second, including a George Springer home run. The offense never got on track and the disappointment was only intensified when it was discovered Houston used underhanded tactics to gain an advantage on opponents that season.
The Dodger Stadium mound proved unkind to Darvish again Sunday in what ended up as a lost weekend for San Diego.
The series started with the Padres in first place by a game after winning 14 of their previous 17 games. In a visit to L.A., the Padres had as many losses in three days as they had in the previous 2 1/2 weeks.
For more than 48 hours last week, the Dodgers did not occupy the top spot in the division for the first time since April. When the weekend ended, it was the Dodgers with a two-game lead, while a four-game series at Colorado awaits.
Next weekend, the rematch takes place at San Diego.
Sunday started much like Saturday when the Dodgers loaded the bases three batters into the game then scored three times. This time, Shohei Ohtani singled, Mookie Betts walked and after a Will Smith line out to right, Freeman crushed a three-run home run to right-center.
It was Freeman’s fifth home run in 16 games since July 30. Before that stretch, he did not have a home run over his previous 23 games.
Two batters after Freeman hit his 15th of the season, Pages hit his 20th with a solo shot to left-center. Three Dodgers players now have 20 homers after Teoscar Hernandez hit the mark Saturday. Ohtani leads the club with 43.
Darvish did not give up a hit after the first inning but lasted just four while throwing 82 pitches. He gave up four runs, his most in his last 10 starts against the Dodgers, including playoffs.
The first-inning at-bats, anyway, were more of what manager Dave Roberts has been looking for as the club sits six weeks away from the start of their title defense in the playoffs.
“Guys are trying to cement their numbers or their seasons or whatever, but now, when you’re in it, you’ve got to win baseball games,” Roberts said. “It comes with more sacrifice. Whether it’s a sacrifice (bunt) here or getting a guy over, a sac fly, shortening up on the bat, which you’ve seen, winning pitches. But I kind of default to that type of play all the time. That’s who I was as a ballplayer. So I see no downside in playing that type of baseball.”
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