Ryan Pepiot shines as Dodgers sweep Marlins

The Dodgers won 10-3 over the Marlins completing their 15th series sweep of the season. They got strong starting pitching followed by solid relief work. Their offense got two-out RBI hits, a little pop and were again relentless in their 16-hit attack.

However this was not what this game set up to be if you looked at today’s pitching matchup.

The Marlins are in a poor stretch, they don’t score many runs and the really needed a strong pitching performance to keep them in the game. All indicators were that would get that today.

For the Dodgers, Ryan Pepiot was making his seventh career start, he had only completed five innings once in those starts and he had a 4.26 ERA in 25⅓ innings pitched.

His opponent was one the National League’s top Cy Young Award contenders, Sandy Alcantara. He had a sparkling 1.92 ERA in 173 IP. He had averaged over seven innings pitcher per start and had given up only eight home runs this season.

And the first inning saw Pepiot walk the lead off batter, hit a batter and then was only saved when Joey Gallo threw out Joey Wendle trying to score after Brian Anderson singled to left.

Mookie Betts led off the bottom of the first with a hard ground ball that was knocked down for an infield single. Betts then stole second and with two outs , Will Smith drove him home with a single.

In the second inning, Joey Gallo hit a high fly ball to right that went off the wall. By the time it was fielded, he had legged out a triple. While the crowd was still buzzing after that hit, Cody Bellinger drove a pitch over the wall for a two-run homer to make it 3-0.

The Dodgers added another run in the third, singles from Trea Turner and Freddie Freeman were followed by a one-out Max Muncy base hit to score Turner.

Ryan Pepiot had settled down after that busy first inning however in the fourth, a leadoff walk was cashed in when Lewin Díaz hit his first career home run to halve the Dodger lead to 4-2.

The Dodgers shrugged off the top of the inning, Gallo led off with a single and while running on the pitch, moved to second on a Bellinger ground out. Betts singled home Gallo to make it four straight innings with a run on the board. Turner would walk and Smith got his second two-out RBI on a ground-rule double.

That was all for Alcantara, he would leave without pitching in the fifth inning for the first time this season. The six runs and ten hits allowed were season highs against Alcantara too.

Pepiot continued his strong work as he completed six innings for his first quality start of his career. In his six innings, Pepiot allowed two runs and four hits. He walked two and struck out seven.

In the bottom of the seventh, Muncy hit his seventh home run in August to increase the lead to five runs. The Dodgers who put up zero runs in only the fifth and sixth innings, added runs in the eighth, Will Smith drove in his third run of the game on a base hit that scored Trea Turner.

After a walk to Muncy to load the bases, Justin Turner joined the rest of the starters as he singled home a run. The Dodgers final run came on an overthrow that allowed a reluctant Will Smith to score on Hanser Alberto’s short fly ball.

Alex Vesia struck out the side in the seventh inning. David Price followed in the eighth inning, he gave up his first run in 12 outings when J.J. Bleday homered to score the third run for the Marlins.

Craig Kimbrel who walked in to the sounds of the Disney classic sing-along-song “Let It Go” and who had not pitched since picking up his first save in a one-run game closed out the Sunday matinee for the sweep.

Sunday particulars

Home runs: Cody Bellinger (17), Lewin Díaz (1), Max Muncy (16), J.J. Bleday (4)

WP — Ryan Pepiot (2-0): 6 IP, 2 runs, 4 hits, 2 walks, 7 strikeouts

LP — Sandy Alcantara (11-): 3⅔, 6 runs, 10 hits, 1 walk, 5 strikeouts

Up next

The Dodgers will complete the first part of their home/road back-to-back series as the Brewers will come to Dodger Stadium three days after they played each other in Milwaukee.

Julio Urías will take the mound against fellow left-handed pitcher Eric Lauer. First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 p.m. PDT and it will be on SportsNetLA.