LOS ANGELES—On a day when Pete Rose was honored with a statue, the Reds failed to make their hits kings proud. Instead, the Dodgers flexed their muscles, hitting four home runs on their way to a 10-2 rout of the Cincinnati Reds.
“The offense today was the star — team offense,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “It’s an offense that’s relentless and pretty constant at putting pressure on you.”
Puig in particular flexed his muscles with two home runs, his third multi-hit home run game of his career. With three hits including one homer, and three RBI, Cody Bellinger had a great game as well too. It was the rookies third three hit game of his young career. With 19 home runs this season he has tied Gary Sanchez for the MLB record of most home runs in a players first 49 games. He also leads the team with 43 RBI this season.
“You’re sort of expecting it,” Roberts said speaking of Bellinger’s brilliant play. “The homers, the doubles, the singles, the walks. … When you look at the stat sheet, it’s very impressive.”
Hyun Jin-Ryu, who has struggled to get wins on the road this year, going 0-5, finally recorded his first road win of the season. Ryu gave up a lot of hits, eight to be exact, but he managed to only give up two runs and two walks in his five innings of play.
“I gave up a lot of hits early, but at the same time I tried to limit the damage,” Ryu said.
Opposing pitcher Asher Wojciechowski had no such luck limiting damage. He had a short day, getting pulled after giving up back to back home runs to Bellinger and Joc Pederson in the third inning. He finished with two and one-third innings, but not giving up six runs (five earned) off five hits.
The Reds day started off with promise, with them getting back to back hits in the first inning and scoring on a throwing error by Chris Taylor. They continued to get hits throughout the day, recording 11, one less than the Dodgers. However, the Reds could not get timely hits, after scoring their first run they went for an abysmal 1-17 with runners in scorers in position. After the game, Reds manager Bryan Price took note of his teams relative lack of offense as of late.
“It’s unusual for us. Since the last game in L.A., we’ve scored [10] runs in [five] games? That tide will turn there offensively, for sure, and we’re too good of an offensive ballclub to think that this is going to last very long,” Price said.
The blowout win continues the Dodgers dominance over the Reds as of late. They’ve now won seven straight, and 16 of 19 over Cincinnati since 2015. The Reds will look to end the series on a positive note on June 18 with the series closer against the Dodgers. Kenta Maeda, who got his first career save with four and two thirds inning pitched in his last appearance, will take the mound for the Dodgers. Meanwhile Bronson Arroyo, coming off a bad game in which he gave up 13 hits to the Padres, will start for the Reds.
