Arizona Diamondbacks break franchise record with fourth straight sweep
By Trisha Garcia
With a victory on Wednesday night, the Arizona Diamondbacks have a new franchise record for consecutive wins
The Arizona Diamondbacks beat the Los Angeles Dodgers in a 3-1 victory to sweep their National League-rivals and break a franchise record with their 13th win in a row.
In 13 games, the Diamondbacks have closed the once-21-game lead the Dodgers held in the N.L. West, which is now just 10.5 games.
The Dodgers have lost 11 of their last 13 games, including six against the Diamondbacks.
However, the Diamondbacks did lose one streak on Wednesday. The Dodgers got on the board first and took away the 97 consecutive innings in which the Diamondbacks had not trailed.
But, more importantly, the Diamondbacks completed their second sweep of the Dodgers without Paul Goldschmidt ever stepping on the field during a game.
Goldschmidt had some soreness in his elbow during the first game, returned to Phoenix for an MRI, which came back clean, but received a cortisone shot before the second game. Although Goldschmidt rejoined the team in L.A., he still didn’t play in the rest of the series to rest his elbow.
Without Goldschmidt’s bat, the Diamondbacks offense still scored a total of 19 runs in three games while only allowing the Dodgers to score two runs.
Taijuan Walker gave up one run in the first inning, but settled down and pitched five scoreless innings to follow. Walker allowed four hits, walked three batters and struckout another four.
Before the seventh inning started, umpires announced they were ejecting Justin Turner for arguing a call on his strikeout in the sixth inning.
With a tie game, Ketel Marte singled and then scored on a double off the bat of Adam Rosales. Rosales moved to third on a single by David Peralta. With two outs, Dodgers pitcher Luis Avilan intentionally walked J.D. Martinez after his four-home run game on Monday.
Unfortunately for the Dodgers, Avilan hit Daniel Descalso with a pitch and walked in a run.
In a perfect performance, the Diamondbacks bullpen retired nine of ten batters faced. Jorge De La Rosa, Archie Bradley and Fernando Rodney combined to pitch three innings to rewrite the history books.
Rodney’s 36 saves this season tie Byung-Hyun Kim’s 36 saves in 2002 for third best in Diamondbacks’ history of closers. Jose Valverde holds the record with 47 in 2007.
The Diamondbacks will have Thursday off, but will bring the streak back to Phoenix to face the San Diego Padres. They have a 7.5 game lead in the N.L. West standings over the Colorado Rockies who will visit Chase Field starting on Monday.
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