LOS ANGELES — As a bench player for the 2013 Dodgers, Miami Marlins manager Skip Schumaker pitched two scoreless innings as a reliever in a pair of blowout losses.
He might be tempted to take the Dodger Stadium mound again before this series is over. It could be his best option.
Max Muncy hit a first-inning grand slam and the Dodgers never looked back, rolling over the Marlins, 8-2, on Tuesday night for their sixth consecutive win and 13th in their past 15 games.
The Dodgers have outscored their opponents 107-30 during this surge, a run differential that reflects just how dominant they have been both on offense and defense.
Dodgers hitters are batting .292 during the 15-game stretch with 27 home runs, averaging 7.13 runs per game.
At the same time, Dodgers pitchers have a 1.79 ERA and a 1.00 WHIP.
The Marlins were complicit in their own demise Tuesday. Starter Edward Cabrera walked four of the first 11 Dodgers batters and hit another one. Mookie Betts flew out to start the bottom of the first against Cabrera. The next ball the Dodgers put in play was an opposite-field grand slam by Muncy.
Cabrera was gone after two innings but his reliever George Soriano didn’t seem to learn from his mistakes. He hit the first batter he faced, gave up a broken-bat double to Muncy then walked Teoscar Hernandez to load the bases again.
Andy Pages drove in one run with a sacrifice fly and Marlins catcher Christian Bethancourt drove in another when he threw wildly on an ill-advised pickoff attempt at third base.
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Gavin Lux followed by lining a two-run home run into the right field pavilion. A night after Walker Buehler made his first big-league start since June 2022, the home run was Lux’s first since Aug. 15, 2022. Lux missed the 2023 season following a devastating spring knee injury and has gotten off to a slow start this year.
While the Marlins pitchers searched for the strike zone, Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto was filling it up. Jazz Chisholm Jr. ambushed Yamamoto’s first-pitch fastball to start the game. The leadoff home run snapped a 15-inning scoreless streak for Yamamoto but he cruised through the first five innings on just 59 pitches – only 10 of them called balls.
Yamamoto gave up another home run (to Bryan De La Cruz) in the sixth inning but his pitch efficiency allowed him to complete eight innings for the first time in his eight MLB starts. Yamamoto’s 97th and final pitch of the night was a 95-mph fastball blown past De La Cruz for his fifth strikeout of the night.
The right-hander allowed five hits and lowered his ERA to 2.79.
More to come on this story.