It had been a while since the Dodgers’ last stress-free win.
Entering Monday, the team had not only won just three times over its previous nine games — but needed extra innings after blown ninth-inning saves in two of them, and a late-game go-ahead home run from Teoscar Hernández in the other.
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Such theatrics underscored the club’s underwhelming play in recent weeks, with manager Dave Roberts bemoaning everything from poor fundamentals, to continued pitching injuries, to a lineup that had most of all gotten back out of sync.
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“We’ve got to kind of lock in our hitting zone,” Roberts said Monday afternoon, “and continue to take good swings.”
In a 7-2 win over the Cleveland Guardians on Memorial Day, the Dodgers finally did.
While Yoshinobu Yamamoto cruised through a six-inning, two-run start, the club’s lineup awoke from a recent lull that had seen them fail to score more than five runs (excluding extra innings) in each of their last seven games.
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Shohei Ohtani provided an early spark, hitting a leadoff home run for the second straight game to take the MLB lead with 19 long balls. Andy Pages added an RBI single in the second inning, before the Dodgers mounted two extended rallies in the fifth and sixth, scoring two runs in each inning.
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani, left, runs the bases after leading off the game with a home run against the Cleveland Guardians on May 26. (David Dermer / Associated Press)
The bullpen was shakier, with Alex Vesia stranding two runners in the seventh before Tanner Scott — coming off two blown saves in his previous three outings — worked around José Ramírez’s second double of the game in the eighth.
But in the top of the ninth, Will Smith punctuated the night with a home run over the tall left-field wall at Progressive Field to ensure the Dodgers (33-21) got back in the win column.
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“It was [nice], just to get a lead and then to add on, and to be able to tack on late,” Roberts said, “to kind of make it not an eventful last couple of innings, to win a game like this.”
As he’s done in almost all of his 11 starts this season, Yamamoto paved the way for a smooth path to victory.
In a win that improved his record to 6-3, the Japanese right-hander yielded just three hits and two walks while striking out seven. He lowered his season earned-run average to 1.97, second-best in the National…