Dodgers keep home mojo working with win vs. Giants
LOS ANGELES -- The Los Angeles Dodgers sustained a four-run outburst in Monday night's third inning and held on to extend their home winning streak to eight games with an 8-3 victory over the San Francisco Giants.
With one out, runners at the corners and a run in, the Dodgers accelerated their rally with three consecutive hits off Giants starter Tim Lincecum. Carl Crawford singled to set up Juan Uribe's RBI single before Joc Pederson drilled a run-scoring double.
"I was missing in the middle of the plate too much," Lincecum said.
Video: SF@LAD: Uribe slaps a run-scoring single to right
Pederson added a sixth-inning homer off Giants reliever George Kontos and Justin Turner belted a three-run homer in the eighth off Yusmeiro Petit, Turner's first career pinch-hit homer. The Dodgers have a National League-best 28 homers.
Video: SF@LAD: Turner hammers a three-run homer to center
The Giants kept the score close with a three-run fifth inning, which featured three straight run-scoring hits as singles by Nori Aoki and Angel Pagan sandwiched Joe Panik's double.
MOMENTS THAT MATTERED
Pederson gets two: Pederson robbed Pagan of at least an RBI double in the first inning with a running, over-the-shoulder catch in left-center. Pederson also turned it into a double play. Aoki, running from first base after a leadoff single, had rounded second, had to retag to go back and was easily beaten by the relay from Pederson to shortstop Jimmy Rollins to first baseman Adrian Gonzalez.
Video: SF@LAD: Pederson's running grab helps turn two
"He hit it well," Pederson said. "Earlier in the day, we worked on angles, with [coach] Lorenzo Bundy. I kept my eye on the ball, and it worked out pretty well."
Said Giants manager Bruce Bochy, "The way the ball was carrying in BP I thought it was going out." More >
Sanchez comes through: The key hit in the Giants' three-run, fifth-inning rally was provided by Hector Sanchez, who was hitless in his previous 19 at-bats and owned a .120 average overall. Sanchez singled to collect his first hit in four pinch-hit at-bats and sustain the Giants' surge with two outs.
Video: SF@LAD: Pagan slaps an RBI single up the middle
Four in the third: The Dodgers sent nine men to the plate in the third inning. They scored four runs off Lincecum on five hits and one Giants error. Howie Kendrick and Scott Van Slyke had RBI singles, and Pederson launched his RBI double.
"We made [Lincecum] get the ball up this time. He got three double plays in the first four innings in San Francisco [last Tuesday, a 6-2 Giants victory]," Dodgers manager Don Mattingly said. More >
Video: SF@LAD: Pederson rips a run-scoring double to right
QUOTABLE
"We're going to try and get him in the lineup more and more. It will be like in the spring, playing some outfield, shortstop, third base. That's the way we're going to get him some at-bats." -- Mattingly on Alex Guerrero, who has 11 hits, including five home runs, in his first 22 at-bats this season.
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Pederson led off the sixth inning by homering to right field on a 1-2 slider for a 5-3 lead. Statcast measured the drive's exit velocity at 102 mph, its launch angle at 22 degrees and its distance at 399 feet.
WHAT'S NEXT
Giants: Madison Bumgarner, who'll start Tuesday's 7:10 p.m. PT rematch against Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers, has struggled in his pair of road starts this year at Arizona and San Diego, posting a 7.00 ERA as opponents have hit .372 off him.
Dodgers: Kershaw will make his fourth start of 2015, and second against the Giants, in Tuesday night's second game of the three-game series at Dodger Stadium. Game time is 7:10 p.m. PT. The reigning NL MVP and Cy Young Award winner has yet to pitch seven innings in a 2015 start, after doing so in 22 of 29 starts in 2014. Kershaw's longest outing thus far is 6 1/3 innings, against the D-backs on April 11.
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