Adrián González, Corey Seager and Yasmani Grandal hit three of the Dodgers’ five homers. (Photos: Jon SooHoo/Los Angeles Dodgers)
By Jon Weisman
In distance, they measured 2,025 feet. On the Richter scale, they might as well have been a 10.
Zack Greinke, the darling of Dodger Stadium for three seasons, was punished in his former home like a Rock’Em Sock’Em Robot.
Five home runs off Greinke — a career-high, including four in the fifth inning — shook Chavez Ravine and sent the Dodgers to a 10-2 victory over Arizona tonight.
With San Francisco shut out in Colorado today, Los Angeles leads the National League West by a season-high four games.
The Dodgers’ five leaders in home runs each took Greinke deep — Adrián González (17) with a man on base in the fourth inning, followed by Joc Pederson (20), Corey Seager (24, with two aboard), Justin Turner (25) and feature creature Yasmani Grandal (24).
Pederson’s gave the Dodgers four 20-homer hitters for the first time since 2001. (Three more round-trippers by Gonzalez would allow them to tie a team record with five.) Seager also singled and doubled, but missed on two chances to hit a triple and become the first Dodger with a cycle since Orlando Hudson, who was sitting next to Arizona general manager Dave Stewart tonight.
Grandal has entered the Dodger single-season top 10 for homers by a catcher, but there are only two actual names above him: Roy Campanella and Mike Piazza, who each hit 30 or more four times.
For all that, it will be hard not to remember this game filtered through the prism of Greinke. He hadn’t allowed four homers in a game since June 23, 2008. He allowed only eight in 117 1/3 innings at Dodger Stadium in 2015. But after Greinke dominated Los Angeles for the first three innings (one baserunner, six strikeouts), the Dodgers went 8 for 13 with 24 total bases to knock him out.
Since the All-Star Break, the Dodgers are second in the NL with 68 homers. It was the second time this season they had homered four times in an inning, more than every other team in the league combined.
The power innage overshadowed a magnificent first six innings by Kenta Maeda, who gave up a leadoff single to Jean Segura before retiring the next 18 batters in a row. In the process, Maeda struck out eight, moving up from 11th to fifth place in single-season strikeouts among Dodger rookie pitchers with 156.
Top Dodger rookies in single-season strikeouts:
236 Nomo (1995)
209 Sutton (1966)
180 Valenzuela (1981)
169 Singer (1967)
155 Maeda (2016)— Dodger Insider (@DodgerInsider) September 6, 2016
Arizona finally sandwiched a walk with two singles for a run in the seventh to push Maeda out of the game, but Louis Coleman prevented any more runs from being charged against him.
throwdeuce
Great to see the O do damage against a good pitcher.
oldbrooklynfan
The Dodgers must’ve felt extremely relaxed knowing the Giants lost this afternoon.