LOS ANGELES _ For most of their season-opening four-game series against Arizona Diamondbacks, the Los Angeles Dodgers played like the vastly superior team, like a club primed to ravage through the National League West as most prognosticators, human and machine, project. But for a few innings in their 8-7 win Sunday, after another pitching debacle cost them a comfortable lead, the Dodgers appeared headed to a sour series split.
Then their offense, a relentless machine already running on all cylinders, went back to work. After Justin Turner reached on an error and Cody Bellinger filed an infield single on the 10th pitch of his at-bat against Yoshihisa Hirano, A.J. Pollock supplied another gut punch to his former team with a two-run double down the right-field line. Max Muncy then knocked a sacrifice fly for the go-ahead run before Kenley Jansen tossed a perfect ninth inning to close a series victory in which the Dodgers outscored their foes by 20 runs.
The Diamondbacks were a playoff team two years ago. Now they're a team attempting to rebuild on the fly without stripping the operation down entirely. They traded franchise cornerstone Paul Goldschmidt during the offseason. They let Pollock and Patrick Corbin walk in free agency. They lost outfielder Steven Souza Jr. to a gruesome knee injury before opening day. They kept Zack Greinke and David Peralta and signed Adam Jones, but the talent drain is substantial.
Entering Sunday, the Dodgers had trailed twice in the four-game series: in the early hours Saturday morning when the Diamondbacks went ahead for the win with two outs in the 13th inning and when Jarrod Dyson hit a home run to begin Saturday night's game. Joc Pederson responded with a leadoff home run in the bottom of the inning and the Dodgers never stopped mashing the Diamondbacks' pitching staff.
Fresh off an 18-run barrage partially fueled by a two-inning batting practice session against a catcher, the Dodgers didn't waste time scoring more Sunday against Luke Weaver, one of the three players the Diamondbacks acquired from the St. Louis Cardinals for Goldschmidt.
The Dodgers' first three batters all reached base and scored in the first inning. Alex Verdugo supplied the timely blow, knocking a two-run double in his first start of the season. Cody Bellinger clubbed a 425-foot moonshot for his fourth and the Dodgers' 14th home run of the season to lead off the third inning. The blast unleashed an outburst from Weaver. The Dodgers were coasting again.
The momentum abruptly shifted in the fourth inning. Walker Buehler had retired nine of the 10 hitters he faced through three innings, surrendering just a single in the third. His fastball touched 99 mph and sat 96 to 98, but his lack of a normal spring training was evident. Buehler, who made just one Cactus League start, was not missing bats and the formula backfired on him in the fourth.
Ildemaro Vargas started the inning with a double. David Peralta followed with a single to drive in Arizona's first run. Jones then singled before Buehler issued a four-pitch walk to Jake Lamb. Ketel Marte ended Buehler's day with a two-run single to move the Diamondbacks to within a run. Buehler threw 66 pitches. The Diamondbacks fouled off 20 of them. He induced two swing-and-misses. He walked off the mound with no outs and runners on the corners.
Pedro Baez was called on to put out the fire; he spread it instead. First, Nick Ahmed cracked a two-run double. Two batters later, Weaver hit a two-run home run to give Arizona a 7-4 lead. It was the first home run of his career. It was not the first time boos from the Dodger Stadium crowd showered Baez.
The Dodgers sliced one off the deficit in the fourth inning. In the fifth, the Dodgers concocted a prime scoring opportunity, but Corey Seager, who didn't start and pinch-hit in the pitcher's spot, popped out with the bases loaded to end the threat without a run. It would not be long before the Dodgers' bats woke up again.
