(TSX / STATS) — ST. LOUIS — The guy who might not have been able to run the ball over the plate Wednesday night made the adjustments that allowed him to shut down the same team on Monday.
Los Angeles Dodgers starter Rich Hill took a no-hitter into the fifth inning and outpitched National League ERA leader Mike Leake in a 5-1 win over the slumping St. Louis Cardinals at sold-out Busch Stadium.
After issuing a career-high seven walks and coughing up five runs in a 6-1 loss to Leake and St. Louis on Wednesday evening, Hill permitted just two hits and a run in five innings Monday, walking two and whiffing four.
According to Hill, two simple mechanical adjustments made the difference.
“It was just really staying over the rubber longer and getting the hand out of the glove,” Hill said. “You saw what happened (today). It was much more crisp and clean. Two easy fixes.”
Hill (2-2) retired the first 10 men he faced before walking Tommy Pham with one out in the fourth on a 3-2 curve that was ruled high by plate umpire Mike Winters. Flummoxed for a bit, Hill then hit Matt Carpenter and permitted a double steal before Jedd Gyorko cashed in the Pham walk with a sacrifice fly.
The Cardinals’ only hits came in succession to start the fifth when Aledmys Diaz grounded a single to center and Paul DeJong blooped a single to right-center field. But Hill induced a double-play grounder from Jose Martinez, then got Dexter Fowler to foul out after walking Leake.
Los Angeles’ bullpen took it from there, working four scoreless innings to seal the team’s fifth straight win and ninth victory in 11 games. It lived up to their pregame ranking as the league’s best in ERA, strikeouts and strikeout-to-walk ratio.
“Not really, because they’re that good,” Hill said when asked if he was surprised by the Dodgers’ relief corps. “When you see the guys with the resumes they have coming out and committing to their pitches, that’s what you’re going to get.”
While Los Angeles upped its record to 32-20, St. Louis (24-24) lost for the ninth time in 12 games as Leake (5-3) failed to post a quality start for the first time in 10 outings this year.
Leake entered the game with a 1.91 ERA but was hurt by the long ball in his seven-inning stint, giving up six runs and four hits in seven innings. He walked one and whiffed seven.
“I gave them a couple of mistakes that they were ready for,” Leake said.
One of them came to start the third as he missed over the plate’s heart with a 1-1 offering to Chase Utley. The veteran second baseman rocketed it 424 feet to the bleachers in right-center field to initiate the scoring.
Corey Seager made it 2-0 later in the third by grounding a two-out RBI single to center that plated Yasiel Puig.
Leake ran into more gopher-ball trouble an inning later when Cody Bellinger smacked a 3-0 pitch 429 feet to right for his 11th homer of the year and ninth of May, tying a franchise rookie record.
“I’m just trying to be consistent,” Bellinger said. “Sometimes, I’ll look around in the outfield and wonder … but it’s real and I’m just trying to keep it going.”
Bellinger also came up big with his arm. He nailed DeJong at the plate as he tried to score from second after Seager kicked Martinez’s one-out grounder in the hole in the bottom of the seventh, cutting off a potential Cardinals rally.
Puig’s sacrifice fly in the seventh scored Chris Taylor to make it 4-1.
Logan Forsythe capped the scoring in the eighth with a leadoff homer against reliever Kevin Siegrist, his first home run of the season.
NOTES: Los Angeles selected the contract of RHP Brandon Morrow from Triple-A Oklahoma City and placed LHP Alex Wood (left SC joint inflammation) on the 10-day DL, retroactive to May 27. … St. Louis activated OF Jose Martinez (left groin) from his rehab assignment and optioned OF Randal Grichuk all the way down to Class A Palm Beach. Grichuk is hitting .222 with four homers and 19 RBIs in 46 games, fanning 54 times in 167 at-bats. … The Dodgers moved RHP Brock Stewart (right shoulder tendinitis) to the 60-day DL to make room for Morrow on the 40-man roster.
