Although the line score from Wednesday’s game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Arizona Diamondback reads two runs on eight hits with no errors for Dodgers manager Dave Roberts‘ team, the real reason for their fourth consecutive win and their two-game series sweep of the (distant) NL West third place Dbacks was more about their stellar defense than their offense.

Oh sure, you can’t win if you don’t hit and score, but you also can’t win if you allow the other team to hit and score, which the Dodger did a great job of preventing at Chase Field on Wednesday night.

Even though it took eight innings for the Dodgers to finally score on a clutch two outs/bases loaded single by Dodgers left fielder (and former Dback) David Peralta, they finally did.

“They had (Dbacks right-hander Miguel) Castro looming, and so it’s kind of I’ve got to make a decision: Do I want David to take that at-bat against, you know, (Dbacks left-hander Kyle) Nelson, or do I want (right-handed-hitting) Kiké (Hernández) versus Castro?” Roberts told reporters postgame. “And I just felt that David was in the game, he’s been hanging in there versus lefties, I don’t think that Nelson has a wipeout slider, I felt David’s gonna put the ball in play, and so I went with it, and to his credit, he took a good at-bat and won the game for us.”

“Roberts gave me the trust and the comfort to send me to the home plate and that helped me a lot, I think everything started with that,” Peralta told SportsNet LA’s Kirsten Watson immediately after the game. “And, you know, I was just trying to slow down the game and, like I said, you’re just looking for a mistake and a pretty good swing, and I helped the team. It was a team win.”

But that ‘team win’ was set up by and outstanding defensive play by 27-year-old Dodgers left-hander Caleb Ferguson, who made a diving catch on a bunt pop-up off the bat of Dbacks shortstop Geraldo Perdomo in the bottom of the seventh, after which he fired a bullet to Dodgers shortstop Miguel Rojas to double up Dbacks center fielder Alek Thomas at second base.

Ferguson then got Dbacks right fielder Corbin Carroll to ground out to Rojas on an outstanding fully-sprawled-out play by Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman to end the inning and the threat.

Dodgers right-handers Joe Kelly and Evan Phillips kept Arizona off the board in the eighth and ninth innings respectively, to put the NL West first place Dodgers a full 6.0 games up on the second place San Francisco Giants and now 11.0 games ahead of the third place Diamondbacks.

Well done, boys!

Play Ball!

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