PHOENIX (AP) - The Los Angeles Dodgers made a big splash in their return to Chase Field.
They beat Arizona 6-0 on Friday night in their first visit to the ballpark since clinching the NL West title there last September and angering the Diamondbacks by celebrating in the ballpark’s swimming pool.
One of the ringleaders of the pool assault, Adrian Gonzalez, drove in five runs Friday night to snap out of a slow start that had him batting .189 with four RBIs coming in.
Hyun-Jin Ryu, pitching on an extra day’s rest, threw seven dominant innings, allowing two hits, striking out eight and walking one. He retired 18 of his last 19 batters and allowed only a pair of singles by Miguel Montero.
Gonzalez hit a two-run homer off Brandon McCarthy (0-2) in the first inning, doubled in two more in the third and had an RBI single in the eighth. The Dodgers’ Hanley Ramirez was 3 for 4 with two doubles, drove in a run and scored three times.
“You don’t get very many of these, where you score a few runs, everything goes good with your pitching, and there was really no true stress in the game,” Los Angeles manager Don Mattingly said. “It was just one of those games that kind of went our way.”
Ramirez and Gonzalez, the Nos. 3 and 4 batters, were a combined 6 for 8 with six RBIs and four runs.
“That’s what we’re there for,” Gonzalez said. “That’s what we’re out here for is to try to get rusn for our pitcher.”
Gonzalez’s homer, on the first pitch he saw, landed in the right-field seats, not too far from the pool.
Jamey Wright pitched two hitless innings to complete the shutout, which took just 2 hours, 26 minutes. The Dodgers had not blanked the Diamondbacks in Arizona since July 27, 2003, according to STATS.
Ryu rebounded from a rough outing a week earlier against San Francisco, when he was tagged for eight runs - six earned - in two innings.
He said the difference this time was he kept the ball down in the strike zone.
“Because I got hit around last game,” Ryu said through an interpreter, “I was trying a little harder today.”er
He beat the Diamondbacks for the second time this season. He was the winning pitcher in the Dodgers’ 7-5 victory over Arizona in Australia on March 23.
In another example of the Diamondbacks’ starting pitching woes, McCarthy allowed six runs and 10 hits in seven innings. His ERA stands at 7.78.
“I haven’t really felt like I have thrown terribly this season,” he said. “It has just been a few pitches in there that have gone wrong and they happen to really hurt me. Whether it is a combination of bad luck and bad pitches, it is really getting old.”
He retired his first two batters, then Ramirez singled up the middle. That brought up Gonzalez, who had been hitting the ball had lately with little to show for it. That changed in one swing that made it 2-0.
The Dodgers got two more on Gonzalez’s two-run single in the third.
McCarthy settled down after that, retiring 11 in a row before Dee Gordon’s one-out single in the seventh.
Yasiel Puig doubled leading off the eighth and scored when Ramirez doubled into the left-field corner. Ramirez came home on Gonzalez’s single.
Puig was back in the starting lineup after being sidelined by a sprained left thumb, the result of a headfirst slide into first base against San Francisco last Saturday. He missed two games and struck out on three pitches as a pinch hitter against Detroit on Wednesday.
NOTES: Paul Goldschmidt was 0 for 4 and failed to reach base for the first time in 32 games, ending the fourth-longest streak in Diamondbacks’ history. … Arizona manager Kirk Gibson said RH Josh Collmenter would start Sunday against the New York Mets, with Randall Delgado going to the bullpen. … The Diamondbacks signed 37-year-old LHP Randy Wolf to a minor league contract. He will pitch for Triple-A Reno. … Arizona goes with LH Wade Miley (2-1, 4.05 ERA) on Wednesday, the Dodgers start RHP Zack Greinke (2-0, 3.27). … Mattingly said after the game that RHP Dan Haren will start on Sunday.
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