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Paul Goldschmidt’s walk-off single in the bottom of the ninth inning yesterday secured a series victory for the Arizona Diamondbacks over the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Diamondbacks took two of three in the series, including yesterday’s 1-0 victory.
Trevor Cahill pitched 7 1/3 innings in yesterday’s game at Chase Field, allowing six hits. On the other side, Josh Beckett pitched the entire game for the Dodgers.
As you might expect, most of the drama in that game came in the ninth innings. J.J. Putz struck out his first batter, Matt Kemp, and a perfectly placed pitch to Adrian Gonzalez had him hitting an easy ground-out.
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The Dodgers got a little hope as Andre Ethier walked. On a 1-2 count to A.J. Ellis, Ethier took off on the pitch, and was gunned out at second by Miguel Montero, ending the inning.
Martin Prado started off with a ground-out on the first pitch, but A.J. Pollock hit one in the left-field gap for a double. Montero drew a walk, and that set up Goldschmidt, who just barely got enough of the bat on the ball to drive it on the ground right of second, into shallow right field, for the victory.
Goldschmidt was crowned with the Dubble Bubble bucket hat à la Cliff Pennington.
That win was equally as impressive as Friday night’s 3-0 victory, in which Patrick Corbin out-pitched the Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw.
Gerardo Parra and Martin Prado hit back-to-back singles in the fourth, and Parra — who had gone to third on Prado’s single — actually scored as Goldschmidt grounded into a double play.
Corbin was pulled after six innings, and Brad Ziegler pitched a mostly uneventful seventh inning.
In the eighth, Daniel Hernandez added a little drama. After getting one out, Matt Kemp singled. Kemp advanced to second on a wild pitch, then third — on another wild pitch. Hernandez walked Gonzalez on that at-bat, but struck out Carl Crawford and got Ethier to ground out to end the inning.
Kershaw was pulled in the bottom of the eighth, after loading the bases, and reliever Shawn Tolleson walked in two runs, and was pulled after just those two batters.
J.J. Putz earned the save there.
Between these games, Ian Kennedy wasn’t exactly stellar in a 7-5 loss.
Six of those runs were charged to Kennedy, who didn’t quite make it through six innings.
Down 6-1 in the bottom of the seventh, the D-backs did start a bit of a comeback. Eric Hinske and Eric Chavez both came off the bench with RBI hits, and in the bottom of the eighth, Martin Prado’s solo homer and Aaron Hill’s pinch-hit double each scored a run, to put the Diamondbacks within one run.
In the ninth, though, the Dodgers put up one more run, while the Diamondbacks ended with a 1-2-3 inning.
The D-backs now go to New York to play a three-game series against the Yankees, which starts on Tuesday, with Brandon McCarthy facing off against Ivan Nova.
