LOS ANGELES ― After six innings of scoreless baseball, Trayce Thompson got the Dodgers on the board Friday night.
Then in the ninth inning, he kept the Miami Marlins off the board.
Thompson’s leaping catch at the fence in right-center field denied Nick Fortes a possible game-tying home run to preserve a 2-1 Dodger win before an announced crowd of 50,431 at Dodger Stadium.
The Dodgers scored once in the seventh on an RBI double by Thompson, and once in the eighth on a mental error by the Marlins, to win the opener of a six-game homestand.
With Mookie Betts on third base following a triple, the Marlins drew their infielders in, hoping to preserve a 1-1 tie. Will Smith hit a ground ball sharply to third baseman Jon Berti, who immediately looked home to throw out the breaking Betts.
Catcher Jacob Stallings, however, had followed Smith a few steps up the first-base line. Suddenly Berti had no throw, and Smith had a rare fielder’s choice RBI.
Thanks to Thompson’s catch, that proved to be the game-winning sequence.
Chris Martin (4-0) was credited with the win after pitching a scoreless eighth inning. Evan Phillips, pitching on a night off for closer Craig Kimbrel, escaped the ninth inning with his second save of the season.
The ending usurped a compelling pitchers’ duel between starters Tyler Anderson and Jesus Luzardo. The two left-handers traded zeroes for six innings, pitching masterfully out of what little trouble they faced.
Anderson stifled the Marlins with more changeups (45) than fastballs (43). For six innings, he held one of the National League’s weakest lineups to three singles and three walks.
Jacob Stallings led off the seventh inning with a double to right-center field. Anderson came back to retire Charles Leblanc and Peyton Burdick, bringing up No. 9 hitter Jerar Encarnacion with two outs.
Anderson got ahead of the rookie 0-and-2, then left a knee-high changeup over the plate. Encarnacion smoked it to left field for a double, driving in Stallings to give Miami a 1-0 lead. Typically stoic, Anderson whacked his glove three times with his right hand after returning to the dugout bench.
The 1-0 deficit threatened to hold up because of Luzardo, who threw exactly 100 pitches over 6⅓ innings. He only once went to a 2-and-0 count, never 3-and-0. For all the strikes the Dodgers saw, they only mustered four hits against Luzardo. Only Betts’ double, on the first pitch of the first inning, went for extra bases.
More to come on this story.
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