LOS ANGELES -- Their time in a Dodgers uniform is still relatively new, but Trea Turner and Max Scherzer have settled in with their new threads and have made an impact in the Dodgers’ latest winning ways.
As Turner clubbed his first homer with the Dodgers, Scherzer fired five innings to propel Los Angeles over the Mets in a 4-3 win at Dodger Stadium on Saturday. It was the team’s ninth consecutive win, as well as their sixth one-run victory during the streak.
Despite the offense showing up for four runs on eight hits, the Dodgers remained 1 1/2 games back in the NL West as the Giants beat the A’s in comeback fashion.
Scherzer battled through traffic in each inning as his pitch count soared to 103 when he struck out J.D. Davis to end the fifth with the bases loaded. Brandon Nimmo’s solo shot that led off the fifth was Scherzer’s only blemish in his final line of five hits, one run and eight strikeouts.
“We had a feel of what we want to do with J.D. today,” Scherzer said. “[I] trusted [catcher Will Smith] in throwing those first couple sliders to get to a 1-1 count and then just went back with the heater in that situation. I thought we had done enough damage with the offspeed to make the fastball effective. I just stuck with the sequence, trusted [my] instincts and [went out] and executed.”
While the right-hander couldn’t sit down the Mets in order, his 28 percent called-strike-and-whiff rate was enough to keep New York away from making any semblance of a comeback. Though Scherzer has proven in his career that he can hold down the Mets, evident by his 2.71 ERA in 25 career outings entering Saturday, New York did pose a challenge. The veteran right-hander last faced the Mets six days ago in New York for six innings of two-run ball.
"They know kind of your timing,” Scherzer said. “They see the pitches, how they behave, and then there's that much more on every single pitch. It's harder to fool them. I just wanted to kind of try to pitch just a touch differently, but even when I was doing that, I wasn't efficient doing that.”
Super reliever Blake Treinen’s 25 1/3-scoreless innings streak was snapped when Pete Alonso clubbed a two-run homer against the right-hander in the seventh inning. It cut the Dodgers’ lead to one run, but Kenley Jansen kept the Mets off the board in the ninth with two strikeouts and a flyout.
Turner set the offensive tone with a leadoff homer against Mets starting pitcher Rich Hill. The 86.4 mph fastball traveled 374 feet to left field with an exit velocity of 96.8 mph, per Statcast. By going 3-for-4 against the Mets, Turner bumped his National League-leading batting average to .326.
"It was good to finally get it out of the way. I feel like it's been forever since I hit one,” Turner said. “I've been swinging the bat all right, but just haven't been able to drive the ball like I want to, but I feel like I'm in a good spot and today I finally got it done.”
Albert Pujols followed suit as he crushed the second homer of the first inning when Hill’s first-pitch fastball stayed over the plate for the right-handed batter. Pujols now has 677 career home runs and trails Alex Rodriguez by 19 for fourth overall on the all-time home run leaderboard.
"That's a good team over there. They've got a hell of a lineup, and they're playing unbelievable baseball right now,” Hill said. “They've just done a good job over there in the organization of being able to go get guys and put together teams that play really good baseball."
The home run party against Hill’s fastball continued in the fourth, this time being Chris Taylor who took advantage of the lack of command. Taylor connected on a fastball up and away in the strike zone and drove it 404 feet to center field. Taylor also walked in the Dodgers’ final run of the game when Mets reliever Miguel Castro couldn’t locate a 3-2 slider with the bases loaded in the sixth.
“We handle it the same way when teams are trailing us or trying to catch us, we just try to control what we can control,” manager Dave Roberts said. “We just got to go out there and take care of our own business and when you do that, good things are going to happen. You'll put yourself in a good spot and we've done that.”
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Trea + Mad Max = 9 in a row for Dodgers - MLB.com
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