CINCINNATI — Whatever vulnerabilities might be seen in the Dodgers’ collection of injuries and a bullpen that hasn’t been consistently reliable, they go from beatable to three-peat-able because of the starting pitchers they will roll out over the next three days.
Tarik Skubal took the first turn on Monday and pitched seven scoreless innings as the Dodgers beat the Cincinnati Reds, 4-1.
The win clinched a postseason berth for the Dodgers for the 14th consecutive season. A 13th NL West division title in that time should be locked down in the next day or two with Yoshinobu Yamamoto scheduled to start Tuesday and Blake Snell on Wednesday. Monday’s win (pending the outcome of the San Diego Padres’ game) shaved the Dodgers’ magic number to three.
Skubal was a Reds menace for his second consecutive start. He faced them at home in his previous start, holding them to two runs on four hits in 7⅓ innings while striking out just five (his low in eight starts with the Dodgers).
This time, he struck out nine, overpowering them mainly with his fastball. That pitch got nine of his 14 swings-and-misses. He used his changeup more as the game wore on and got four misses on nine swings.
The Reds made Skubal sweat just once. With one out in the fifth, Juan Brito singled and Skubal walked JJ Bleday. It was the only time the Reds had two baserunners in an inning against Skubal.
A wild pitch moved the runners into scoring position, but Skubal struck out Ke’Bryan Hayes and Hector Rodriguez to strand them. Skubal rolled through the next two innings on just 15 pitches, allowing him to get through seven innings on 90 pitches.
After a slow start – by his standards – in his first four starts with the Dodgers (a 3.38 ERA), Skubal has allowed just five runs over 26 innings (a 1.73 ERA) in his past four. The Dodgers have won his past five starts.
The Dodgers didn’t have a big game on offense either, managing just three hits of their own. But they made more out of them.
Kyle Tucker’s solo home run leading off the second inning gave them the lead. Teoscar Hernandez added a two-run home run in the fourth and their third hit, a two-out single by Kiké Hernandez, drove in another run in the seventh.
The Dodgers took their shutout into the ninth inning when Elly De La Cruz broke it all to pieces with a 457-foot home run off of Evan Phillips. De La Cruz has homered in each of the four games the Reds and Dodgers have played over the past 10 days.
More to come on this story.