Dodgers' first baseman Adrian Gonzalez says he's not a home run hitter -- the national league begs to differ. Gonzalez hit his NL-leading eighth home run of the season on Wednesday and Los Angeles defeated their rivals the San Francisco Giants 7-3 in the third and final game of the series.
Dodger stadium is known as a pitcher's park around the league mainly because of the large outfield and the marine layer and creeps in off the pacific coast. However, 2015 has played much differently as the Dodgers currently lead the league in home runs with 28, four more than second place Cincinnati.
"Maybe it's global warming," joked Dodgers manager Don Mattingly.
Joc Pederson, Andre Ethier, Jimmy Rollins and Gonzalez all homered for Los Angeles off of Giants starter Ryan Vogelonsong who surrendered four long balls in a single game for just the second time in his career. He last did it on September 3rd, 2014 in 1 9-2 loss to the Rockies at Coors field (known as a hitters' park).
Pederson made his first big league start in the leadoff spot on Wednesday as Mattingly has been tinkering with the lineup ever since Carl Crawford went on the DL on Tuesday with a torn oblique muscle. Pederson hit the first pitch he saw form Vogelsong into the right field pavilion.
"It's good that we got to him [Vogelsong] early," said Pederson of the first inning.
Three batters later Gonzalez continued to state his case for NL Player of the month when his solo-shot left the park like a cruise missile. Gonzalez went 2-for-4 with a run scored and an RBI as he finishes the month of April with a .383 batting average, nine doubles, eight homers and 19 total RBIs.
"I was looking fastball and he threw me a curveball," said Gonzalez of his round tripper. "Thankfully I was able to turn on it and hit it out."
After a one out walk to Scott Van Slyke, Ethier joined the home run party with a four-bagger of his own and before Dodgers fans found their seats, it was 4-1 in favor of Los Angeles.
"He [Vogelsong] made a couple mistakes over the heart of the plate and we capitalized off of them," said Ethier. "He needs to live on the edges but he made some mistakes tonight."
The bleacher seats at Chavez Ravine were temporarily renamed "Souvenir City" as Rollins led off the bottom half of the third inning with a deep dinger of his own to make it an even four lefties to homer of Vogelsong before he was chased from the game.
"It's not a hitter's park," said Rollins of Dodger Stadium. "Yes, they do seem to go to the outfield and die here often. Tonight the weather was a littler warmer (83 degrees), so the ball carries a little further. But balls that are hit well, it doesn't matter. All the balls hit tonight were really squared up. They came off the barrel and cleared the infield fast, and that's generally a good sign."
Vogelsong (0-2) allowed six runs on five hits (four of them homers) over three short innings. It was the first time in his career that he allowed three home runs in the first inning of a game and just the second San Francisco starter to do it since Matt Cain on April 29, 2013 at Arizona.
"I warmed up fine in the bullpen and felt fine, physically. I just didn't make very good pitchers," said a somber Vogelsong in the losing locker room. "Not all of them were up, but some were, for sure. They weren't terrible pitches, just not as good as they needed to be"
Zack Greinke (4-0) continued his dominance over the NL West as the former 2009 AL Cy Young winner allowed three runs on seven hits with six strikeouts over 6.0 innings.
Grienke tied a career-high winning his ninth consecutive decision and improved to 16-0 with a 1.79 ERA against the NL West since the start of the 2014 season. In all, Greinke is an eye-popping 22-1 against the NL West since donning Dodger blue in 2013.
Game Notes:
53,285 were in attendance at Dodger Stadium for "Clayton Kershaw Blanket Night."
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