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ST. LOUIS — Kevin Kiermaier and Miguel Rojas have made very good livings based on their skills with the glove.
You couldn’t tell that Friday night.
The two defensive specialists combined for four hits and drove in five runs – including three on Kiermaier’s tie-breaking home run in the sixth inning – as the Dodgers beat the St. Louis Cardinals, 7-6, in the opener of their weekend series.
The Dodgers made the unexpected offense stand up on a night when the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres both lost – something that hadn’t happened since July 28. The Dodgers’ lead in the National League West is back to three games over both.
With their starting rotation once again in disrepair, the Dodgers called up left-hander Justin Wrobleski to start Friday.
Wrobleski gave up four home runs in 20 innings over his previous four major-league starts. That trend picked up steam against the Cardinals. He gave up three in five innings – a two-run homer to Paul Goldschmidt (the 35th of his career against the Dodgers) in the second inning and solo home runs to Masyn Winn in the third and Pedro Pages in the fourth. Pages’ drive covered an estimated 462 feet, the third-longest hit at Busch Stadium in the Statcast era (since 2015).
That left the Dodgers trailing 4-2 in the sixth inning.
Mookie Betts led off with a home run and later added a double. With two outs in the inning, Gavin Lux added a single to his solo home run in the second and Will Smith followed with an infield single. Rojas’ second hit of the game drove Lux in with the tying run and Kiermaier followed with his first home run as a Dodger to give them a 7-4 lead.
It began shrinking almost immediately.
Michael Grove replaced Wrobleski and walked two of the three batters he faced to start the sixth. Both came around to score on RBI singles by Brendan Donovan and Pedro Pages off lefty reliever Anthony Banda.
Evan Phillips and Joe Kelly each put the tying run on base but successfully walked the one-run tightrope in the seventh and eighth innings, setting up Michael Kopech for his first save with the Dodgers.
More to come on this story.
Originally Published: August 16, 2024 at 8:02 p.m.
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Courtesy : https://www.pressenterprise.com/2024/08/16/dodgers-ride-offense-from-kevin-kiermaier-and-miguel-rojas-to-win/