LOS ANGELES ― The Dodgers’ franchise-record 109th win of the 2022 season ended as many have earlier than: a lopsided rating and a pitching look by way of software participant Hanser Alberto.
Their 10-1 victory over the Colorado Rockies on Friday evening got here with an added bonus: home-field advantage through the tip of the World Series.
An eight-run outburst within the fourth inning gave beginning pitcher Clayton Kershaw (11-3) plentiful room to win his penultimate get started of the steady season. Kershaw tossed six shutout innings and the Dodgers didn’t permit a run till Alberto took the mound within the 9th inning.
“Tonight was just an all-around great ballgame,” Manager Dave Roberts stated. “Clayton set the tone throwing up zeroes and managed a little traffic early. Mookie (Betts) made a great play out there to keep an inning at bay in right field. Offensively, we just came alive.”
Cody Bellinger hit his first house run in additional than a month all the way through the fourth-inning rally, the Dodgers’ most effective house run earlier than an introduced crowd of 52,025 at Dodger Stadium.
Betts went 3 for five, Chris Taylor went 3 for 4, and Bellinger and Will Smith had two hits apiece.
The Dodgers had already locked up home-field advantage through the tip of the National League Championship Series. Now, in the event that they win that sequence, they’d host Game 1 of the World Series on Oct. 28.
“I think travel-wise, the playoffs this season are different. They don’t have that extra off-day in between (Games 5 and 6 of the NLCS). If you can be home as much as possible, that’s huge. We love playing here. We’ll take that for sure.”
The Dodgers (109-48) are 55-21 at Dodger Stadium this season, the most productive house checklist in MLB.
Kershaw has no longer been at the dropping finish of a choice since July 30 in Colorado. He overlooked just about a month with a lower-back damage in a while thereafter. In six begins since coming back from the injured listing, the left-hander is 4-0 with a 1.50 ERA.
This one, he stated, required additional effort.
“This was a tough one stuff-wise so I had to grind through a lot of guys on base,” Kershaw stated. “Overall I didn’t have my best stuff tonight. Every once in a while it happens that you have to grind. Fortunately, our guys put up a bunch of runs tonight.”
For a glass whose sturdiness has been extra of a priority than his effectiveness, the hot stretch has been in particular encouraging for Kershaw. The three-time Cy Young Award winner’s ultimate 5 begins have all lasted six innings or longer. His 2.30 ERA for the season will be the sixth-lowest in MLB if he had sufficient innings to qualify.
Kershaw threw 88 pitches and precipitated fewer swings and misses (12) than balls in play (18). But Colorado’s 5 hits averaged lower than 78 mph, and Kershaw stepped up within the sport’s snatch moments.
With runners on 2d and 3rd base and one out, Kershaw struck out Elias Diaz and were given Ezequiel Tovar to fly out to finish the second one inning. In the 3rd inning, he were given out of some other two-on, one-out jam by way of inducing a flyout and an infield pop-up. The left-hander didn’t permit some other runner previous first base.
Bellinger had no longer hit a house run since Aug. 21 earlier than he took Chad Kuhl (6-11) deep with two runners on base within the 3rd inning. He was once hitless in his earlier 11 at-bats when the day started.
“It was good to see Cody get rewarded,” Roberts stated.
Now that the Dodgers have secured home-field advantage right through the postseason, the stakes for his or her season-ending, six-game sequence in opposition to the Rockies (65-92) appear reasonably minor.
Kershaw is anticipated to make an abbreviated get started subsequent Wednesday within the Dodgers’ ultimate regular-season sport. By then, they’re going to have a greater sense of who amongst their rehabbing gamers are wholesome sufficient to take part in a best-of-five NL Division Series that will start Oct. 11 – their ultimate vital plot level as opposed to looking at a cornucopia of crew and person data fall.
“When you have a huge lead, when you’ve secured home field, all that stuff, you have a tendency to tinker, you have a tendency to get everybody perfect,” Kershaw stated. “That’s just not the way baseball works. Nobody’s perfect. We’ve been playing for seven, eight months. It doesn’t matter how much time off, how much rest, how many games you’re up. You are what you are at this point.”
The Dodgers aren’t highest, however they’re nearer on paper than any crew in franchise historical past.