Brandon McCarthy allowed a pair of home runs and fell just shy of completing his scheduled four innings, but the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the Seattle Mariners at Peoria Sports Complex.
Justin Turner opened the scoring in the first inning, lifting a solo home run to left field. Trayce Thompson, celebrating his 26th birthday on Wednesday, walked with two outs and stole second base but was tagged out attempting to advance to third.
After Jarrod Dyson led off the bottom of the first inning with a single and stole second base, Ben Gamel erased the Dodgers’ lead with a two-run home run. McCarty walked Danny Valencia, but limited the damage to the two runs.
The Dodgers loaded the bases with two outs in the second inning on a pair of walks and hit by pitch. However, Chase Utley grounded out to end the inning. Turner followed an Andrew Toles triple with an RBI groundout to tie the game in the third inning.
Thompson’s solo home run gave the Dodgers the lead and knocked Chris Heston out of the game. Former Dodgers reliever Casey Fien worked around an error to keep the Mariners within a run. Fien then bookended a scoreless fourth inning with strikeouts.
McCarthy retired the first two batters faced in the bottom half of the inning before surrendering a game-tying solo home run to Leonys Martin. That was followed by a Mike Freeman double, and McCarthy gave way to Adam Liberatore.
A trio of singles by Toles, Turner and Thompson pushed a run across in the fifth inning before Mariners relief pitcher Jonathan Aro managed to record an out. Cody Bellinger’s sacrifice fly extended the Dodgers’ lead to 5-3.
Liberatore was removed with two outs in the bottom of the fifth and a runner on second base. Shea Spitzbarth induced a flyout to keep the Mariners off the board.
After Charlie Culberson doubled and advanced to third base on an error, Brett Eibner lined an RBI single into left field. Utley and Toles singled to right field, with the latter scoring Eibner. Jose Miguel Fernandez added to the string of hits with an RBI double. Bellinger later capped off the five-run inning with an RBI single.
Julio Urias, scheduled to pitch two or three innings, labored and failed to make it out of the inning after entering in the sixth. He opened the frame by striking out Daniel Vogelbach, which was followed by a Carlos Ruiz double that landed just fair.
A walk and wild pitch put runners on the corners with one out for Freeman, who hit a two-run double. Urias retired Tyler Smith before being replaced by Chris Hatcher. The young left-hander needed 31 pitches to record two outs.
Hatcher retired all four batters faced on the afternoon, and the Dodgers took their 10-5 lead into the eighth inning. Chris Taylor led off with a base hit, advanced to second base on an O’Koyea Dickson walk, and later scored on Holt’s single. Tim Locastro’s RBI base hit tacked on another run.
The Mariners scored a pair of runs in the bottom of the ninth before Michael Boyle could record the game’s final outs in the Dodgers’ 12-7 victory.
