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Weekend Series Recap: Dodgers Sweep Rays in Commanding Fashion

The Dodgers winning ways continued this weekend with an overpowering sweep of the Tampa Bay Rays. The Dodger bats exploded and Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke continued to shut down opposing batters.

The Dodgers staged a dramatic comeback Friday night, overcoming a 6-0 deficit. In fact, between the seventh inning Friday night and the fifth inning Sunday, the Dodgers scored 18 unanswered runs. More importantly, the Dodgers also now have a season high 7 1/2 game lead in the NL West standings.



Let’s take a look at all three games during the series.

THE COMEBACK

David Price was in Cy Young form Friday night as he shutout the Dodgers for six innings and left after the seventh with 6-1 lead.  Many Dodger fans turned in early on Friday night, only to awake to the news that the Dodgers had won 7-6.

After scoring a pair of runs in the eighth off of a trio of Rays’ relievers, the Dodgers roughed up Rays closer Fernando Rodney for four runs, including an RBI triple from Mark Ellis and RBI doubles from Nick Punto and Adrian Gonzalez.

With the game tied, Rodney got Jerry Hairston to ground out, but Rodney botched the throw and Gonzalez scored the winning run. Skip Schumaker summed it up by saying it was the Dodgers “best win so far.”

KERSHAW AND GREINKE KEEP ROLLING

Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke continued to throwing the ball extremely well.  Greinke tossed 6.1 shutout innings Saturday and improved to 10-3.

Greinke has only allowed nine earned runs in his last seven starts, a 1.66 ERA.  Kershaw was even better, hurling 8 innings of one run ball, lowering his league leading ERA to 1.88.

Kershaw actually received some run support and improved to 11-7 and hasn’t allowed more than three runs in a start since June 21.  Facing these two on back-to-back days is not fun for any opposing team.

SHOW OF OFFENSE

The Dodgers’ bats are alive.  L.A. put up 12, 13, and 14 hits in each game respectively. Adrian Gonzalez drove in five runs over the weekend, Mark Ellis had a pair of three-hit games, Yasiel Puig continues to show improved plate discipline, walking four times in the series.

In Hanley Ramirez’s absence, guys like Punto, Schumaker, and Hairston have stepped up their production. Schumaker explained how much fun it is coming to the stadium everyday and how the Dodgers are always confident they’ll win.

The Dodgers welcome the New York Mets to Dodger Stadium on Monday for a three-game series. Although the Mets are seven games under .500 and 16 1/2 games out of first place, they actually have a better record on the road.

David Wright may be hurt, but that hasn’t stopped the Mets from winning five of their last six games. They took two of three from the Arizona Diamondbacks at Chase Field this weekend.

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In case you missed it, be sure to find out the latest on Matt Kemp’s ankle injury.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg0AP5LACzc

Staff Writer

Staff Writer features content written by our site editors along with our staff of contributing writers. Thank you for your readership.

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