Dodgers ride home runs, Justin Wrobleski’s 1-hit outing past Phillies

LOS ANGELES — Yeah – but he didn’t hit a leadoff home run too.

Following on the heels of Shohei Ohtani’s six no-hit innings (and leadoff home run) on Wednesday, Justin Wrobleski didn’t allow a hit until the sixth inning and just one in his seven innings as the Dodgers beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 4-2, on Friday night.

The win extended the Dodgers’ winning streak to a season-high six games, during which they have outscored their opponents 44-16.

It is part of a longer bulldozing that has seen the Dodgers win 13 of their past 15 by a combined score of 94-31.

“Honestly, it just feels like we’re showing up every day and playing baseball,” third baseman Max Muncy said of the hot streak that seemed to sneak up on the Dodgers. “That’s how it felt when we were playing bad and that’s how it feels when we’re playing good. That’s the way you want it to be. You want to go out there and do your work every single day. You don’t want to chase the highs. You don’t want to lull in the lows. You want to go about your business every day and that’s what it feels like we’re doing.”

Wrobleski went about his business a little differently against the Phillies.

He showed a livelier fastball than he has had all season. His four-seamer averaged more than 95 mph through the first five innings on Friday and he even hit 97 mph multiple times, up from a season average of 93.7 mph. He retired the first 10 Phillies in order, striking out four.

“Yeah, just something clicked for me,” Wrobleski said.

“I don’t really know what exactly it was. But I just felt better today. Felt like I was – I don’t know, just everything felt like it was in sync again, and I felt back to normal, as opposed to how I’ve been, honestly, all year.”

For most of the year, Wrobleski’s normal was pretty successful. He was 5-0 with an 0.56 ERA in his first five starts despite a distinct lack of swing-and-miss – something he was questioned about seemingly after ever start. With the uptick in velocity on Friday, he had 16 swings-and-misses and a career-high nine strikeouts.

“I think it’s just kind of felt like a little bit of a missing piece, just kind of something that I know I have in me, and it would make me better. And obviously tonight, I had that, and it made me better,” he said.

“It’s a lot more fun, I’ll tell you that much. But obviously, like I’ve said before, anyway you can get outs in the major leagues, I think you’re going to take them. But yeah, obviously you love to see more strikeouts, just because all the expecteds (analytics) love the strikeouts and everything else – which, honestly there’s give and take to it. And I think it is important, and it’s something we’ve been working towards. So it’s good to see the work we’ve been putting in come to fruition a little bit today with more punch outs set up. That was good to see.”

His perfect parade was broken up by an error in the fourth inning when miscommunication between Andy Pages and Kyle Tucker led to Trea Turner’s fly ball glancing off Tucker’s glove and dropping to the warning track uncaught. He was stranded at second base when Wrobleski went back to setting the Phillies down in order, retiring the next seven (five on strikeouts).

Kyle Schwarber put an end to this night’s no-hit watch with two outs in the sixth inning when he sent a 1-and-1 fastball from Wrobleski on a 411-foot journey into the netting beyond the center field wall. It was Schwarber’s major league-leading 22nd home run of the season – and the Phillies’ only hit in seven innings against Wrobleski. The one-hit outing came after Wrobleski had given up 14 runs combined in his previous three starts.

“I thought tonight the biggest thing was the velocity. I don’t know what his average was, but it ticked up a couple miles an hour,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “With that, he was getting a lot of in-zone swing-and-miss, the slider was good. For me it was just the uptick in fastball velocity. Those guys had to honor it. When you can reach back for 97, makes life a lot easier.

“It just gives him way more margin (for error). Early on in his first five, six starts, there were a lot of balls in play, obviously some soft contact, balls at guys. But obviously you’re bringing the fielders into play. Tonight, probably his best outing. When you can take out the fielders and get the swing-and-miss, the strikeouts like he did – a really dominant performance against a really good ball club.”

Phillies starter Zack Wheeler came into the game having allowed just one home run in his first 37⅔ innings this season. He gave up four in the first five innings on Friday, the Dodgers punching them out with regularity.

Freddie Freeman squeezed one inside the left-field foul pole in the first inning, his fourth home run in nine games (after hitting just one in the previous 35 games). Muncy went deep in the second inning and Ohtani made it back-to-back games with home runs (after he hit just two in his previous 26 games). After a brief pause in the fourth inning, Will Smith led off the fifth inning with the Dodgers’ fourth homer of the night.

Over the past three games, Dodgers hitters have dug the longball, hitting 12 home runs. They finished the night with just two non-homer hits – both singles by Ohtani in the fifth and eighth.

“We just weren’t missing the few mistakes he was making,” Muncy said of Wheeler on Friday. “Overall, he didn’t pitch that bad of a game tonight. We didn’t have a whole lot of traffic out there, but we took advantage of the few mistakes he made. It was big for us to do that.”

The Phillies closed the gap with a run off Edgardo Henriquez in the eighth. But Alex Vesia struck out Schwarber to end the eighth and Tanner Scott closed it out in the ninth.