Arizona Diamondbacks beat Los Angeles Dodgers, 4-1 to clinch series by 2-1: MLB Update
Xavier Nady, Ryan Roberts hit homers and Ian Kennedy pitched strong innings to help the Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 4-1 at the Dodgers Stadium, on Sunday night, May 15, to carry away the three-game road series 2-1.
Xavier Nady came into plate for his first at-bat and blistered a superb 408ft long two-run homer off the Dodgers’ starter, Ted Lilly, to lead off the game in a positive manner. On the next pitch, Ryan Roberts splashed a beautiful 378ft one-run homer to take
his team to 3-0.
Both the shots came after Stephen Drew touched a led off walk, which made Nady exited after swinging his bat with full zeal.
Nady said while talking about Drew, "Drew had a good at-bat in front of me, and then I saw a couple of pitches and obviously got something I could handle. Lilly was tough on me after that, and tough on everybody. He just had that one bad inning."
Then, Gerardo Parra reached on bunt single to third, allowing Miguel Montero to steal second base, and Ian Kennedy chipped into air to help Montero reach the third base. With Montero on third and Parra on second, the D-backs’ top slugger, Chris Young stepped
on the plate and hit a run gathering sacrifice fly to take his team to 4-0 in the second inning.
Kennedy, on the other hand, held the Dodgers’ batters score-less in his first two innings, and gave away just a single in the third. Kennedy was little shaky in the third inning, as he tossed eleven balls and gave away six fouls out of 32 total pitches.
However, he allowed just one run on four hits, one walk and struck-out eight batters to earn his fourth triumph of the season.
“Today was pretty much a battle, trying to throw strikes,” Kennedy said. “My command wasn't as good as it had been and my curve ball wasn't as sharp as it had been. So I had to rely on my defence, and our offence carried me early on.”
Esmerling Vasquez, David Hernandez and James Jerry Putz provided Kennedy an impressive back-up and did not give away any run over their one inning each. Putz tossed in a striking manner to earn his ninth save of the season. The right-hander allowed a leadoff
double to James Loney before taking Dioner Navarro, his only victim of the game.
The Dodgers’ Aaron Miles hit to the deep centre of the field to earn the only run for his club in the third inning,
The Dodgers’ starter, Lilly, although made a strong comeback after the second inning, but remained winless for fourth time in 2011 season. Lilly gave away four runs on five hits, walked two and made five strike-outs over six innings.
However, the Dodgers’ relievers Mike MacDougal, Scott Elbert and closer, Javy Guerra did not yield any run over their one inning spell each.
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