Dodgers Playing Solid Baseball 

The DODGERS opened the series with a 6-4 win over the Birds as Chris Taylor fouled off four straight pitches- Then hit a grand slam on an 0-2 pitch in the sixth inning, snapping the Orioles eight-game winning streak to open the series. It was Taylors second grand slam of the season. L.A. leads the majors with nine grand salamis on the year. 

Earl Heath 

Contributing Sports Writer

Michael Grove won his second outing in a row for the NL West-leading Dodgers, who picked up their eighth victory in nine games.The Men in Blue have been on a tear since the All-star break. 

Jason Heyward hit a three-run homer during a five-run second inning, and the Los
Angeles rolled over Baltimore 10-3 this week. 

“Going into the break, we were playing good baseball,” said skipper  Dave Roberts said. “I think guys are settled in to their roles. The bullpen has stabilized. You just sort of hope you can keep that momentum coming out of the break, and we certainly have.” 

Aaron Hicks drove in two runs for Baltimore, which lost on back-to-back nights to Los Angeles after entering the series on an eight-game winning streak. The Orioles, trail first-place Tampa Bay by one game in the AL East (at press time) 

The Orioles showed their youth pitching issued eight walks, committed a season-high four errors and was 2 for 10 with runners in scoring position. 

After a walk and a single to open the second, Heyward crushed a fastball from Tyler Wells 414 feet to center. Freddie Freeman and Will Smith added back-to-back RBI singles as Wells labored through a 40-pitch inning. 

Wells (7-5) was pitching for the first time in 10 days and lasted two innings, his shortest outing of the season. He allowed five runs and struck out two. 

Freddy freeman is the team RBI leader (at press time) with 77 (Photo: Jayne Kamin-Oncea / USA TODAY Sports)

Grove (2-2) gave up Hicks’ RBI double in the second but didn’t allow another runner past first until the first two batters reached in the sixth. That ended the night for the rookie right-hander, who has lowered his ERA from 7.54 to 6.40 in three appearances this month and struck out four. 

“I just needed something to throw in to lefties,” Grove said. “I’ve been working on it the past couple weeks and it kind of got into it today and it was working.” 

It was a night when some thirteen teams scored 10-plus runs on July 4, 1894, and 12 teams did it on May 30, 1884. However, that was long before the American League and National League merged to form what is now Major League Baseball. 

The DODGERS opened the series with a 6-4 win over the Birds as Chris Taylor fouled off four straight pitches- Then hit a grand slam on an 0-2 pitch in the sixth inning, snapping the Orioles eight-game winning streak to open the series. It was Taylors second grand slam of the season. L.A. leads the majors with nine grand salamis on the year. 

“He threw me a bunch in a row and I was able to get to that one,” Taylor said. “You can’t cheat to it, because he’s got slider and changeup as well. So you really are just trying to touch it. I think I was just able to kind of make the adjustment as he kept throwing them.”