The Los Angeles Dodgers took care of business in their two-game series against the last-place Texas Rangers on Wednesday night, defeating them 3-1 to earn the sweep.
The offense slugged three solo home runs, but the real story of the night was the performance of Alex Wood, who had Texas guessing all night. Wood tossed seven shutout innings to earn his eighth victory of the season, allowing just four hits and while striking out five and walking two.
In 25 games this month, the Dodgers rotation has been the best in baseball, going 8-3 with a 2.43 ERA. Wood believes that they have to continue performing at a high level if the team wants to be successful, via Ken Gurnick of MLB.com:
“It starts with us,” Wood said of the starters. “At this point in the year, you play a lot of good teams against a lot of good pitching and you want to come out and put zeros up and give our guys a chance to score first and hold on.”
Wood was pitching on extra rest as the Dodgers realigned their rotation for the upcoming series against the Arizona Diamondbacks, and it wound up paying dividends for him.
He was coming off one of his worst starts of the season when he gave up seven hits and three runs while lasting just four innings on Aug. 20 against the St. Louis Cardinals.
Wood still has allowed three runs or less in every start since June 3 though, so he has certainly made his case to be in the Dodgers’ postseason rotation if they were to make it back to the playoffs for the sixth straight season.
