PHOENIX — Yoshinobu Yamamoto would probably like to forget his one-inning MLB debut. If he could get MLB to agree, his ERA would be 1.64 and his WHIP 0.97 over six Seoul-less starts.
The Dodgers scored five times in the second inning and coasted to an 8-0 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks with Yamamoto turning in his second consecutive scoreless start.
As The Bee Guy’s 15 minutes of fame wound down, the Dodgers won their third series on the three-city, two-country, 5,425-mile cavalcade. They won seven of the nine games, outscoring their three opponents (the Washington Nationals, Toronto Blue Jays and Diamondbacks) 45-19 and trailing at the end of a total of just 15 of the 82 innings played. They return home with a stellar 11-5 record on the road this year (including one of the two Seoul Series games) to go with a surprisingly mundane 9-8 mark at home (also including one of the Seoul Series games).
Yamamoto neutralized the Diamondbacks as effectively as The Bee Guy’s “non-pesticidal solution” knocked out Tuesday’s bee swarm. The Japanese right-hander allowed five hits and walked two in six scoreless innings and now has a 15-inning scoreless streak.
The Diamondbacks only got two baserunners to second base against Yamamoto – one in the first inning then later in the sixth. Both were stranded there.
Diamondbacks left-hander Jordan Montgomery was scheduled to start Tuesday’s bee game and went through his pregame routine only to be scratched when the start was delayed almost two hours.
He might have been wishing for locusts if he’d known how it was going to go Wednesday.
The Dodgers scored five times on four hits and two walks in the second inning against Montgomery.
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Andy Pages’ two-run home run started the scoring. Austin Barnes doubled in another run when his fly ball glanced off center fielder Corbin Carroll’s glove and dropped to the warning track. Mookie Betts drove in two more runs with the first of his three singles in the game.
The MLB leader in hits (49), Betts has had 12 multi-hit games in the first 33 games of the season, five of three hits or more.
Will Smith led off the third with a solo home run and Montgomery’s night was just about over. The Dodgers added two more runs in a four-walk seventh inning against Diamondbacks relievers Blake Walston (making his MLB debut) and Brandon Hughes. Miguel Rojas and Chris Taylor had back-to-back bases-loaded walks.
The bottom half of the Dodgers’ lineup started to contribute offensively on this trip, sparked by Pages. In Wednesday’s win, the final four hitters – Pages, Rojas, Taylor and Barnes – combined for five hits and three walks, scored four of the Dodgers’ runs and drove in five.
More to come on this story.