LOS ANGELES_The Chicago Cubs seemed determined to make short work of Rich Hill, the long-in-the-tooth starter who is the oldest active pitcher in the major leagues.
Fourteen batters in Friday night, the Los Angeles Dodgers left-hander had allowed three runs on six hits, two of them home runs and four that left Cubs bats at 104 mph or faster, and recorded eight outs.
Then, quicker than it takes one of Hill's looping 72-mph curveballs to reach the plate, Hill snapped out of his funk, retiring 11 in a row and 13 of the last 14 batters he faced to key a 5-3 victory before 46,631 in Dodger Stadium.
Hill lasted seven innings, allowing three runs on seven hits, striking out seven and walking one, to extend a stretch of rotation brilliance in which the Dodgers have posted quality starts in 25 of 30 games and gone 20-3 with a 2.04 ERA and 198 strikeouts against 28 walks since May 10.
Pedro Baez threw a scoreless eighth and closer Kenley Jansen pitched around first baseman Matt Beaty's two-base error in the ninth, striking out three to extend his scoreless streak to 101/3 innings over 10 games and notch his 20th save.
The teams were tied 3-3 through three innings with all six runs scoring on homers _ Anthony Rizzo's two-run shot in the first and Kris Bryant's solo shot in the third off Hill, and Beaty's two-run shot in the second and Justin Turner's solo shot in the third off Cubs starter Kyle Hendricks.
This was no surprise. Hitters are on pace to break the major league record of 6,105 homers set in 2017, and the Cubs (112 homers) and Dodgers (110) rank second and third, respectively, in the National League behind Milwaukee in homers.
But the Dodgers scored the tiebreaking run in the fourth and an insurance run in the fifth without hitting the ball out of the park.
Beaty doubled to left-center field with one out in the fourth and scored when Hill, whose at-bats, teammate Max Muncy said, are among "the most entertaining in baseball," slapped an opposite-field two-out single to left for a 4-3 lead.
Hill's first RBI of the season and 13th of his career snapped a Dodgers' streak of 13 runs scored via the homer and made the 39-year-old the oldest Dodgers pitcher to drive in a run since 42-year-old Greg Maddux in 2008.
Alex Verdugo opened the fifth with a single to right, and he took third on Cody Bellinger's one-out single to right. Muncy smashed a hard grounder at Rizzo, who looked Verdugo back at third before firing to second for a forceout.
Verdugo broke for home as Rizzo threw to second. Cubs shortstop Javier Baez threw home, but Verdugo got his foot into the plate before catcher Willson Contreras' tag for a 5-3 lead.
The Dodgers nearly blew the game open in the seventh when Chicago reliever Mike Montgomery walked three batters to load the bases with two outs.
Chris Taylor sent a drive to deep center, where Albert Almora made a leaping catch near the top of the wall. The ball did not appear high enough to clear the wall, but Almora saved three runs.
Like they did Thursday night, the Cubs jumped to an early lead Friday, this time on a Rizzo double that turned into a two-run homer after a 25-second instant replay review.
Bryant reached on a one-out single to center in the first and Rizzo followed with a towering fly ball into the right-field corner.
Bellinger leaped high above the short wall before the ball caromed back onto the field.
It did not take long for replay officials to determine that the ball bounced off of a fan and not Bellinger's glove, giving Rizzo his team-leading 18th homer.
The Cubs lead would have been 3-0 if not for a spectacular game-opening play by Taylor, the Dodgers shortstop who made a backhand diving grab of Kyle Schwarber's up-the-middle smash. Taylor had shifted behind the second-base bag and threw to first in time for the out.
The two-run cushion was gone by the second. Muncy doubled to right-center and Beaty cranked an 80-mph changeup into the right-center field pavilion for his first career homer and a 2-2 tie.
Chicago went ahead 3-2 in the third when Bryant smashed a solo homer 425 feet into the left-center field pavilion.
The Dodgers response? Anything you can do, I can do better. Or farther.
Turner crushed a two-out solo homer in the bottom of the third into almost the exact same spot in left-center, only his score-tying shot traveled 430 feet.
