Dodgers score early and often to beat Diamondbacks again

After three straight one-run victories, the Dodgers’ latest comeback win came with some distance, piling on the Diamondbacks 12-3 on Tuesday night to complete a doubleheader sweep at Dodger Stadium.

The first win of the day for the Dodgers featured four home runs under the sun, and one double. The nightcap saw Los Angeles hit one home run but added five doubles, including Freddie Freeman tying a single-game franchise record with three doubles, tying him for the major league lead with 14 doubles of the season. He drove in three and scored twice.

Gavin Lux gave the Dodgers’ the lead with a two-run double in the second.

Trea Turner, who homered in the first game, drove in four runs in the nightcap, thanks to run-scoring singles in the first and second innings, and a grounder in the sixth plating another.

After three hits, including a home run and a double earlier in the day, Mookie Betts walked twice, reached on an error, and scored three times Tuesday night. His 35 runs scored lead the majors, giving him the most runs scored by a Los Angeles Dodger through the first 36 games of a season, one more than Rafael Furcal in 2008.

Power drive

Edwin Ríos is making the most of his playing time opportunities, with a recent hot streak earning him his first career start batting fourth in a major league lineup. He cleaned up almost right away, hitting a three-run home run in the second inning, the third time in his last four starts that Ríos drove in three runs.

Over his last ...14 plate appearances, dating back to May 9, Ríos has three home runs, a double, and 10 runs batted in.

That the second-inning home run was already Ríos’ second at-bat of the game was bad news for starter Merrill Kelly, who needed 39 pitches in the second frame alone. The Dodgers walked four times against Kelly and torched him for five hits and eight runs, the latter matching the right-hander’s total allowed in his first seven starts this season.

That second inning marked the fourth time this season the Dodgers have scored at least six runs in an inning. They’ve scored exactly six runs in three different innings, and scored seven in an inning once.

Rally caps

The early runs broke one recent pattern, but the Dodgers also continued another, potentially frustrating habit. With two solo home runs in the first inning off Tyler Anderson, the Diamondbacks had a 2-0 lead before the Dodgers even batted. That marked eight straight games that LA’s opponent has scored first. In fact, the Dodgers have trailed at least 2-0 before scoring in all eight games.

But in the first seven of those games, the Dodgers scored only one run total in the first two innings, before piling up eight runs in Kelly’s two innings on Tuesday. That early outburst, plus later runs over the last three days, have helped the Dodgers win the last four games after dropping four straight.

Anderson made a nice recovery from that first inning, getting through seven frames without allowing another run. It was the polar opposite of last Thursday against Philadelphia, when Anderson was torched for seven runs and 10 hits, remaining in the game for six innings only to ease some of the burden off the bullpen during the Dodgers’ month-long schedule gauntlet.

In the nightcap on Tuesday, again soaked up innings, but was much more effective in doing so. The left-hander has 34 strikeouts against only five walks this season.

Christian Walker homered in both games of the doubleheader, and has hit a home run in four straight games at Dodger Stadium, dating back to last September. That ties a ballpark record for any opponent. The only folks with longer home run streaks at Dodger Stadium were Dodgers — Gary Sheffield (2000), Adrián González (2014-15), and Joc Pederson (2015) all homered in five straight games at Dodger Stadium.

Game 2 particulars

Home runs: Edwin Ríos (4); Jordan Luplow (5), Christian Walker (9)

WP — Tyler Anderson (4-0): 7 IP, 7 hits, 2 runs, 7 strikeouts

LP — Merrill Kelly (3-2): 2 IP, 5 hits, 8 runs, 4 walks, 2 strikeouts

Game finished — Hanser Alberto (1): 1 IP, 2 hits, 1 run

Up next

One more game on the homestand for the Dodgers, who send Walker Buehler to the mound on Wednesday afternoon (1:10 p.m.; SportsNet LA, MLB Network) trying for the sweep. Zach Davies starts the series finale for Arizona.