Alex Wood improved to 10-0 this season and the Los Angeles Dodgers moved 4.5 games ahead of the Arizona Diamondbacks in the National League West standings, behind a 1-0 win. The victory leaves the Dodgers in position to complete a three-game sweep Thursday.
While he didn’t get as deep into the game as Clayton Kershaw the night prior, Wood also had a no-hitter in the works. That ended on a Jake Lamb two-out double in the fourth inning.
Up that point the Diamondbacks’ lone baserunners in the game were a Jeff Mathis walk in the third and a Ketel Marte leadoff walk in the fourth. Wood got Brandon Drury swinging to strike out the side and strand Marte and Lamb to preserve the Dodgers’ one-run lead.
The next bit of trouble Wood encountered came in the sixth inning when Gregor Blanco led off with a bunt single and Paul Goldschmidt knocked a one-out base hit into center field.
Joc Pederson handled a pair of fly balls, and Wood completed another scoreless inning by collecting his eighth strikeout of the game. He picked up two more strikeouts in the seventh as part of a 1-2-3 inning.
That was it for Wood despite only throwing 85 pitches and taking the mound to warm up for the eighth inning. The outing was Wood’s third this season with double-digit strikeouts but first since May 13.
He became the first Dodgers pitcher to open the season 10-0 since reliever Ed Roebuck did so in 1962. Don Newcombe in 1955 was the last Dodgers starter to accomplish the feat.
Pedro Baez worked around a leadoff walk in the eighth, ending the inning by striking out Goldschmidt, and Kenley Jansen shut the door in the ninth, after allowing a two-out single, to earn his 20th save this season.
From an offensive perspective, Justin Turner, who leads the Final Vote to make the National League roster in the 2017 All-Star Game, doubled with two outs in the first inning.
He was stranded, however, and the Dodgers scored their lone run of the game when Yasmani Grandal’s RBI double scored Chris Taylor from first base in the second inning. The double was Grandal’s 18th of the season, which surpassed last year’s total and left him one shy of matching a career high that was set in 2014.
