Greinke Shows LA Hand: a Pair of Aces
By Matt Veasey
6. 6. 71. Final. 0
One night after being shut out by Clayton Kershaw, the host Los Angeles Dodgers showed that their hand contains a 2nd ace in Zack Greinke. The righty half of that tandem, Greinke followed up by shutting out the Phillies last night, 6-0 at Dodger Stadium.
Greinke (8-2) allowed just one hit, striking out 8 and walking no one. Only a clean single by Ryan Howard to lead off the 2nd inning kept the NL All-Star from a no-hitter. The outing extends his scoreless streak to 35.2 innings, and since his first start of June, Greinke has allowed just 3 runs in 50.2 innings.
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Phils’ skipper Pete Mackanin was quoted after the game: “It was all Greinke. He’s the whole package. He’s more impressive than the guy (Kershaw) last night. He had all his pitches working for him. He had command, location and velocity and he makes it look easy at times. There’s plenty of good pitchers in the league. He’s right at the top of my list.”
Despite tossing just 96 pitches, 63 of those for strikes, Greinke was pulled for the 9th inning in favor of reliever Joel Peralta, who allowed one hit in shutting the door on the Phillies.
The Dodgers offense on the night was largely supplied by enigmatic Cuban outfielder Yasiel Puig. His 4th inning 2-run double off Phils’ starter Severino Gonzalez broke up a scoreless ball game and gave the Dodgers a 2-0 lead. After a 2-run homer by Adrian Gonzalez in the bottom of the 6th made it 4-0, Puig blasted his own 2-run shot in the 8th to make the final score of 6-0.
The 22-year old rookie Gonzalez (3-3) made the 7th start of his big league career, and this was largely another effective outing. He lasted 5.2 innings, the longest outing of his nascient career, allowing 4 earned runs and 5 hits, striking out 3 and walking 2 batters. He threw 56 strikes in his 84 pitches.
Things don’t get any easier now for the Phils, as they will travel north to San Francisco to take on the defending World Series champion Giants who will begin the series on Friday night at AT&T Park by sending out their ace, lefty Madison Bumgarner. Cole Hamels goes for the Phillies, with exactly three weeks to go before the MLB non-waiver trade deadline.