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PHOENIX — The Dodgers were a perfect 5-0 this season when facing former Cy Young Award winners.
On Saturday night at Chase Field, however, they finally met their match.
Despite missing his last scheduled start because of shoulder inflammation, Corbin Burnes had his way with the Dodgers’ powerhouse lineup in a 3-0 win for the Arizona Diamondbacks, throwing seven shutout innings to ensure the Dodgers will do no better than split this four-game series between National League West rivals.
“I think that he was going to bring his best tonight,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “And we really didn’t get a whole lot of good swings against him.”
In a stark reversal from Friday night’s 25-run thrill ride, when the Dodgers needed a five-run rally in the third inning and a six-run come-from-behind outburst in the ninth to earn their lone win through three games this weekend, a pitcher’s duel ensued under a closed roof at Chase Field on Saturday.
Dodgers starter Dustin May was good, dotting the corners of the strike zone with his wicked sinker-sweeper combination en route to a 6 ⅔-inning, two-run, five-strikeout outing — his longest since returning from a second career elbow surgery this year.
“He was in a good rhythm, he was getting ahead in counts, he put guys away when he needed to,” Roberts said of May, who lowered his ERA to 4.08 on the season. “I thought he pitched really well.”
May’s only two mistakes came on a couple first-pitch sinkers over the middle of the plate: One that Corbin Carroll hit for a leadoff triple in the third inning, leading to one run; and another that Eugenio Suárez clobbered for a 455-foot homer in the sixth.
“I was working the sinker to both sides of the plate, and I had just two poorly executed sinkers, and they took advantage of it,” May said. “It’s the big leagues, and that’s what they do.”
Burnes, however, was better the whole way, flashing the form that made him a Cy Young winner in 2021 with the Milwaukee Brewers and $210 million free-agent signing for the Diamondbacks (21-19) this winter.
After starting his season with a six-game hitting streak, and batting .308 with six extra-base knocks over his first eight games, Michael Conforto has been in a prolonged slump.
“[He was] being Corbin Burnes,” said first baseman Freddie Freeman, one of four Dodgers’ batters who went hitless on a day the team collected only five total. “He’s one of the best pitchers in the game for a reason … Just had everything going today.”
Burnes erased a leadoff single in the first from Friday night’s hero, Shohei Ohtani, with an immediate double-play from Mookie Betts. He stranded two runners on base in both the third and fourth innings, easily extinguishing the two best threats the Dodgers (26-14) generated against him. And he finished the day giving up just five hits and two walks (one of them was intentional) while striking out five.
Entering Saturday, some of the Dodgers’ most impressive wins this season came against former Cy Young arms. During their 8-0 start to the season, they won against both of last year’s winners, Tarik Skubal of the Detroit Tigers and Chris Sale of the Atlanta Braves. They knocked off Jacob deGrom and the Rangers in Texas last month, when their own Cy Young candidate, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, outdueled deGrom in a low-scoring affair. In the last two weeks, they had battered Miami’s Sandy Alcantara twice, beating up on the NL’s 2023 winner as he works his way back from Tommy John surgery.
Burnes, however, was on a different level Saturday, complementing his signature cutter with a mix of curveballs, changeups, sinkers and sliders to turn in his best performance in a Diamondbacks uniform.
Between Burnes and Arizona reliever Ryne Nelson, who finished the game with a two-out save, the Dodgers forced Diamondbacks pitchers to make just 107 throws in what was their third game being shut out this season.
“Especially when he’s at the bottom of the zone [with his cutter], it’s hard to hit those,” Freeman said of Burnes, who was also aided by a favorable strike zone from home plate umpire John Tumpane. “He was commanding the zone and getting some calls … We were ready for him, and he was just really good today.”
While the loss ended the Dodgers’ perfect record against Cy Young winners, it continued a more troubling trend for the team of late.
Since that 8-0 start, the Dodgers have played 11 games against teams currently above .500. With Saturday’s loss, they are now 3-8 in those contests, and will now need a win Sunday to avoid dropping a fourth-straight such series.
“We probably do got to play better against teams with winning records,” Roberts said, “but I’m not carrying too much weight into that one right now.”
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