Monday was shaping up to be a forgettable night at Dodger Stadium.
Until the Dodgers delivered an unforgettable ending in the bottom of the ninth.
Trailing by two runs to the Marlins, the Dodgers mounted a three-run rally on the back of quality at-bats, a big swing from Shohei Ohtani and a walk-off hit from Kyle Tucker, who lined a two-run, two-out single to center to lift the Dodgers to a 5-4 win.
Entering the ninth, the Dodgers seemed to be lacking any semblance of life.
They hadn’t scored since Teoscar Hernández’s two-run single in the first. They had squandered that lead on Liam Hicks’ three-run homer against Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the fifth. They had left the bases loaded in the seventh. They had gone 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position, slipping back into the sluggish form that dogged them for most of last week.
But then Andy Pages drew a leadoff walk against Marlins closer Pete Fairbanks. Dalton Rushing pinch-hit and did the same in the next at-bat.
And though Miguel Rojas failed to get down a sacrifice bunt, instead popping it up to the catcher for the first out of the inning, Ohtani made sure it didn’t matter — ripping a ground-rule double into right to score one run.
Three batters later, Tucker came to the plate with the bases loaded, after the Marlins intentionally walked Freddie Freeman, removed Fairbanks from the game with an injury, then got a strikeout of Will Smith from right-hander Tyler Phillips.
Phillips also got ahead of Tucker with a first-pitch strike, landing a splitter at the bottom of the zone.
But when he went there again, the team’s $240 million offseason signing was ready for it, slashing a line drive into center field for his biggest moment yet in what’s been a slow start to the year.
Source: California Post – Breaking California News, Photos & Videos
