Dodgers hit 4 home runs in 8th inning to beat Padres

LOS ANGELES ― The Dodgers saved their champion for past Wednesday night.

With 4 games near successful the regular season, they’ll person to marque it a recurring theme.

Trailing the San Diego Padres by 3 runs with six outs to go, the Dodgers deed 4 location runs successful the eighth inning to implicit a wild, come-from-behind 11-9 victory.

Home runs by Max Muncy, AJ Pollock, Cody Bellinger and Corey Seager pushed 5 runs crossed the plate, allowing the Dodgers to erase a 9-6 deficit. Seager’s two-run blast disconnected right-hander Nabil Crismatt was the last dagger.

“Just trying to get the tally in,” Seager said. “That was the lone thought.”

The triumph allowed the Dodgers (102-56) to support gait with the first-place San Francisco Giants (104-54) successful the National League West standings.

The Giants bushed the Arizona Diamondbacks, 1-0, earlier Thursday night. They pb the Dodgers by 2 games with 4 to play themselves, and their magic fig to clinch the part rubric is down to three. The NL West runner-up volition big the St. Louis Cardinals successful the wild-card crippled connected Oct. 6.

Pollock besides homered successful the archetypal inning to springiness the Dodgers an aboriginal 4-0 lead. Mookie Betts began the Dodgers’ comeback from a 9-5 shortage with a solo location tally successful the seventh.

Seager went 3 for 5 with 3 RBIs. Pollock and Muncy each had 2 of the Dodgers’ 12 hits. Trea Turner extended his hitting streak to 15 games with an RBI azygous successful the archetypal inning.

Justin Turner came disconnected the seat to deed a treble successful the eighth inning up of Seager’s game-winning blast. Turner’s 357-foot alert shot clanged disconnected the left-field wall, falling a fewer feet shy of a five-homer inning.

David Price (5-2) was credited with the triumph aft pitching a scoreless eighth inning, and Kenley Jansen tossed a cleanable ninth to person his 37th save. The Dodgers person won 8 consecutive games against the Padres (78-80).

This 1 volition beryllium remembered for a homer-happy inning dissimilar immoderate other.

“That was a brainsick inning,” Bellinger said, “maybe the craziest I’ve been a portion of.”

After blowing leads of 4-0 and 5-1 early, the Dodgers saw the Padres unsmooth up starter Max Scherzer for six runs (five earned) successful 5⅓ innings. In the seventh inning, San Diego scored 3 much runs against Brusdar Graterol to instrumentality a 9-5 lead.

The aforesaid Padres squad that committed 2 errors successful the tract conscionable 1 time earlier turned the tables against Scherzer. The right-hander threw 97 pitches and induced lone 9 swing-and-misses.

For Scherzer, his past 2 starts magnitude to a uncommon lapse of dominance. He’s allowed 5 earned runs successful back-to-back outings. He began the time with a 2.28 ERA, champion successful the National League, but present trails Milwaukee’s Corbin Burnes, 2.46 to 2.29.

“He conscionable didn’t person bully command,” Manager Dave Roberts said of Scherzer. “At times the curveball was good. The cutter and changeup conscionable weren’t commanded. He’s picked america up galore times over. We picked him up.”

In what mightiness person been his last commencement of the regular season, Scherzer besides went 0 for 2 astatine the plate. He has failed to scope basal successful immoderate of his 61 sheet appearances this season, which would interruption the erstwhile grounds held by Wei-Yin Chen.

On a nighttime erstwhile hard interaction was casual to travel by for the Padres, the Dodgers’ defence was porous. San Diego tied the people astatine 5-5 successful the 4th inning erstwhile Seager allowed a regular crushed shot to glimpse disconnected his glove, turning the imaginable 3rd retired into an unearned run. Chris Taylor flubbed an casual crushed shot earlier successful the aforesaid inning.

The Dodgers’ astir costly mistake was officially recorded arsenic a triple disconnected the bat of Wil Myers successful the sixth inning. It came astatine the disbursal of Gavin Lux.

Lux, making his sixth vocation commencement successful halfway field, took his oculus disconnected Myers’ heavy alert shot astatine the past second. He dropped the shot past crashed violently into the wall.

Lux sustained a cervix stinger, Roberts said, and volition beryllium re-evaluated Thursday morning. He was replaced by Bellinger, whose defence successful halfway tract has been steady.

Bellinger’s bat is different story. He began the time hitting .158, the lowest batting mean of immoderate hitter with astatine slightest 300 sheet appearances this season. He ended the time by treating the announced location assemblage of 45,366 to a game-tying location run.

“He’s successful a bully spot mentally, a bully spot physically,” Roberts said of Bellinger. “He was acceptable erstwhile called upon. His teammates were truly excited for him.”

The teams volition play erstwhile much Thursday arsenic the Dodgers effort to drawback the Giants. A chaotic paper berth would extremity their streak of part titles astatine eight.