‘We Won a Game Yesterday’

‘We Won a Game Yesterday’

July 13th, 2024 at 8:00 am

by Ron Cervenka

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James Gammon as Lou Brown in *Major League II* (1994)
(Morgan Creek Entertainment)

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A great scene from a timeless classic and appropriate for the recently struggling National League West first-place Los Angeles Dodgers, who snapped their four-game losing streak with a thrilling 4-3 win over the American League Central fourth-place Detroit Tigers on Friday.

After yet another shaky start by 35-year-old Dodgers left-hander James Paxton, who allowed three runs on five hits, with one strikeout and four walks in his brief 3.2-inning start, and after scoring two in the top of the fourth inning to pull to within one of the Tigers, the Dodgers pulled off yet another come-from-behind win, besting Detroit by a score of 4-2.

“I just wasn’t executing very well. I was leaving some balls in the middle of the plate and bad counts, and they did damage,” Paxton told reporters postgame of his rough outing.

Bad counts indeed, as two of the four Tigers batters Paxton walked came around to score.

**Tigers center fielder Riley Greene‘s first-inning gap double to center off Paxton drove in two of Detroit’s three runs on Friday. (SportsNet LA)**

Fortunately for the hard-throwing Ladner, Canada native, the Dodgers bullpen bailed him out, and the Dodger bats finally woke up, albeit a bit too late in the game for comfort.

Although the 7-2 Paxton didn’t figure in the decision, his ERA now sits at 4.38. Dodgers right-hander Michel Petersen was credited with the win to go 3-0 on the season, with right-hander Daniel Hudson picking up his fourth save of the season.

“I give the bullpen a ton of credit for picking up, you know, six innings, whatever it was, five-plus, and they did a tremendous job,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told SportsNet LA’s Kirsten Watson after his team’s 56th win of the season. “Just hanging in there, taking good at-bats when we needed to, shooting the four-hole, whether it’s Teo (Teoscar Hernández), or CT (Chris Taylor), Austin (Barnes) coming off of the bench getting a hit for us, Shohei (Ohtani) coming up big when we needed him most, and, you know, Freddie (Freeman) taking a really good at-bat against the lefty. So, across the board, we got the hits we were hoping for, you know, and it just comes with just the fight I know we have,” Roberts added.