ST. LOUIS – Kevin Kiermaier and Miguel Rojas have made very good money with their skills with the glove.
That couldn’t be said on Friday evening.
The two defensive specialists combined for four hits and five runs – including three on Kiermaier’s game-winning 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 were able to impress with their unexpected offense on a night when both the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres lost – something that hadn’t happened since July 28. The Dodgers’ lead in the National League West is now three games ahead of both teams.
With their starting lineup once again in a desolate state, the Dodgers called up left-hander Justin Wrobleski to the starting lineup for Friday.
Wrobleski has allowed four home runs in 20 innings in his last four major league games. That trend continued against the Cardinals. He allowed three in five innings – a two-run home run by Paul Goldschmidt (the 35th of his career against the Dodgers) in the second inning and solo home runs by Masyn Winn in the third and Pedro Pages in the fourth. Pages’ swing traveled an estimated 462 feet, the third-longest swing at Busch Stadium in the Statcast era (since 2015).
This put the Dodgers behind 4-2 in the sixth inning.
Mookie Betts led off with a home run and later followed with a double. With two outs in the inning, Gavin Lux added a single to his solo home run in the second inning and Will Smith followed with an infield single. Rojas’ second hit of the game brought Lux home with the tying run and Kiermaier followed with his first home run as a Dodger, giving them a 7-4 lead.
It began to shrink almost immediately.
Michael Grove replaced Wrobleski and walked two of the three batters he faced to start the sixth inning, both scoring on RBI singles by Brendan Donovan and Pedro Pages against left-hander Anthony Banda.
Evan Phillips and Joe Kelly each scored the tying point on one base, but managed to keep the ball on the wire in the seventh and eighth innings, allowing Michael Kopech to make his first save with the Dodgers.
More information on this story will follow.
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