Zack Greinke continued on his historic pitching pace, throwing eight shutout innings as the Los Angeles Dodgers hung on to defeat the Arizona Diamondbacks 4-3 on Sunday at Chase Field to take two of three in the series.
Greinke (17-3) sent a no-hitter into the fifth inning, but a one-out double to Jarrod Saltalamacchia broke up the no-no too soon.
"He was so sharp today, Typical Zack," Dodgers catcher A.J. Ellis said of his starting pitcher. "He made it a point to be a lot sharper today. They are a really young aggressive team over there and Zack took advantage."
The game featured a matchup of two potential superstars who could be lifting some hardware at the end of the season. Greinke, a top candidate for the 2015 NL Cy Young Award, and Paul Goldschmidt, a top candidate for the 2015 NL MVP award.
Greinke left no room for debate as who was better, as the right-hander dominated Goldschmidt, striking him out three straight times earning "Goldie" the silver sombrero.
"I got ahead of him pretty good. I made some decent pitches with two strikes," Greinke said of his battle with Goldschmidt. "He had some chances on the first pitch, but after I made a first pitch strike, I made some good pitches to him."
K. #whiff pic.twitter.com/KmxASeGF58 — Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) September 13, 2015
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Greinke lowered his Major League leading ERA to 1.61, putting him on pace to have the lowest ERA since 1994 when Greg Maddux had a phenomenal 1.56 for the Atlanta Braves.
Justin Turner put the Dodgers on the board in the first inning with an RBI single to right field that scored Justin Ruggiano who led off the game with a double. Turner finished 2-for-4 with an RBI and a run scored.
Adrian Gonzalez had three hits as he continues to stay hotter than the Arizona desert sun. Gonzalez knocked in a run in the bottom of the seventh to give LA a 3-0 lead.
Ellis hit the only homer of the game off Keith Hessler in the top of the 8th inning. It was Ellis' fifth home run of the season as he continues to swing the bat well in place of Yasmani Grandal who has struggled the past two months.
"Try and keep it simple and have good at-bats," Ellis said of his approach at the plate. "I need to be productive for the team. It's been nice the second half to be able to hit like I did when I got to the big leagues."
Less than 24 hours after recording four hits, including his first career home run, Dodgers rookie Corey Seager went 0-for-4 with a walk, snapping his streak of consecutive starts with a hit, and nine consecutive at-bats where he reached base safely. Seager has reached base safely, in each of the last nine games he's started.
For the second consecutive game, Kenley Jansen entered in the ninth inning in a no-save situation. This time however, Jansen struggled with two outs, walking Goldschmidt before allowing two straight hits, one of them a three-run homer to Saltalamacchia to cut the Dodgers lead to just one run.
"I stopped competing," Jansen said of his struggle in the 9th. " I took a little bit for granted when I got two outs. I have to finish the inning and I didn't do that. I blame me. That shouldn't happen."
After the game, his catcher A.J. Ellis defended the Dodgers closer.
"It's great to win the series," Ellis said after the final out was recorded. "Kenley got the last guy and we're able to move on and go home."
With the Dodgers win and Giants blowout victory over the Padres in San Francisco, LA's magic number to win the NL West shrank to 13.
Game Notes:
Ronald Torreyes was called up from Triple-A Oklahoma City earlier in the day and made his Dodgers debut, filling in for Jose Peraza at second base in the bottom of the fifth inning. Torreyes helped set a Los Angeles franchise record as he was the 55th player to play for the Dodgers this season.
Late on Saturday night, with heavy hearts, the Dodgers announced the passing of Chef Dave Pearson. Pearson worked at Dodger Stadium for over 50 years, and died at the age of 75 after a lengthy battle with lung cancer.
