Manny Machado of the Dodgers celebrates with Matt Kemp after hitting a solo home run against the Rangers in the top of the fourth inning at Globe Life Park in Arlington on August 29, 2018 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)
ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) - Alex Wood pitched seven scoreless innings and the Los Angeles Dodgers hit three solo homers while stretching their winning streak to five games with a 3-1 victory over the Texas Rangers on Wednesday night.
Cody Bellinger and Manny Machado hit first-pitch homers off Mike Minor (10-7). Yasmani Grandal also went deep for the defending National League champion Dodgers.
Los Angeles started the day within a game of NL West co-leaders Arizona and idle Colorado. The Diamondbacks, who open a big four-game series in Los Angeles on Thursday night, played later Wednesday night at San Francisco.
Wood (8-6) limited the Rangers to four singles, throwing 67 of 98 pitches for strikes with five strikeouts and two walks. The lefty had faced the Rangers only once before, pitching at Texas for Atlanta four years ago when he struck out nine and allowed a run on four hits.
Kenta Maeda, a 20-game starter for the Dodgers this season, worked the ninth instead of struggling closer Kenley Jansen to get his first save since June 2017 despite giving up an RBI double to Adrian Beltre.
Beltre, baseball's active career hits leader, matched Robin Yount for 17th on the all-time list with his 3,142nd hit.
The solo homers by Bellinger and Machado were the only hits and runs off Minor in his six innings. The lefty, a teammate of Wood's in Atlanta in 2013-14, struck out seven and walked three.
Bellinger's 21st homer of the season put the Dodgers ahead to stay in the third inning. Machado hit the first pitch of the fourth into almost the same spot on the hill in straightway center field. That was Machado"s 32nd homer this season, his eighth in 37 games for Los Angeles since being traded last month from the Baltimore Orioles.
Grandal hit his 22nd homer in the eighth off reliever Alex Claudio.
OUT AT HOME
Dodgers RF Yasiel Puig, in the lineup while awaiting a ruling on his appeal of a two-game suspension from a bench-clearing incident Aug. 16 against San Francisco, had a two-out triple in the seventh inning. He was thrown out trying to steal home even after getting a good jump off third base against Claudio. Puig didn't play Tuesday after his appeal hearing.
THE OTHER LEAGUE
The Dodgers wrapped up their interleague schedule with a 12-8 record. They won all four games against the Rangers, including two at Dodger Stadium in June. Texas is 7-10 against NL teams, and has to sweep its three-game series at San Diego from Sept. 14-16 to avoid its first losing record in interleague play in 12 seasons.
UP NEXT
Dodgers: After their only two road games in a 15-game stretch, the Dodgers are back home Thursday night for the opener of that NL West showdown against Arizona. Rich Hill is 0-5 in seven starts against the Diamondbacks since getting traded to Los Angeles two years ago.
Rangers: Texas has its second scheduled day off in four days Thursday before a three-game weekend series at home against Minnesota.
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I think the consistency to the lefties was the biggest thing ...
Consistent with my breaking pitch to lefties
(more strikes all pitches)
Yeah, I thought we attacked the zone, we had a good plan.
I was glad that we were able to have consistency with my breaking ball and the way we attacked them.
(7 innings)
Always nice to go deep in the game.
Tight game the whole time ...
MBL record 3 homers and 3b, be part of a 1st ...
Just keeping the ball on the ground, and getting some swings-and-misses from my slider.
Huge, at the point in the year where you need to win the games you're supposed to win, its' really nice for us to string five together like we have, especially going into to play a club that we struggled playing against earlier in the year against Arizona.
I think those 5 games came at the right time
And we're pretty excited to go home and see the diamondbacks ..
All when we werne't playing very well (played in short span against them)
Maeda:
The other team scored, but I think it's all about winning, so I was able to stay tough
Not really I was fine ...
Today I definitely felt like ninth inning was a special inning, it's something a little bit different
Definitely being the last inning, I think there's a sense a little bit of anxiety and a little bit of pressure, and having to battle that is a little different
ROBERTS:
(Wood since last start)
He kept the ball down, there was a lane that he was continuing to throw through, and with that, the fastball, the slider, or the slider-cureevall, change, came out of that consistently all night, it was down
(Maeda)
Tonight he just I thorugh the struff was good as far as fastball was good, the fastball command wasn't' where he wants it where we'd like it, and the secondary
Threw a cupel of good sliders, threw a good change, I think, to get Guzman right there ont eh groundout, but just didn't have the feel for his stuff tonight, but he found a way to get out of it
(Kenley)
After just kind of thinking through it, we talked actually yesterday afternoon, and felt hat yesterday's game was a good one to get ready for Arizona, so to get him back to back, we felt good with kenta going iout ther eina potential save situation, so to get him off tongith, to get him ready to go for tomorrow, that's what we talked about, so I wanted to see that through
We have to kind of play a little coy sometimes (Kenley wasn't coming in)
Kenley's going to close (this weekend)
(took dcare of business in 5 games)
Yeah, there's no doubt, our guys understand the schedule, what's at stake, to come with focus each night, and tonight we didn't throw out of a bunch of hits, but three homers was enough tonight, but I still think the at-bat quality was good,a nd alex to see the performance he gave tonight .. consistenly he was in command all night, and we needed that start from hi m
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Mike Minor
"The home runs didn't really bother me as much, solo shots, but the three walks bothered me.
"I just fell behind 2-0 and tried to make a pitch away. I went four straight balls to the 9-hole guy. (Justin) Turner wasn't swinging at the same pitches he was swinging at earlier in the game. He saw a bunch of them in the second at-bat."
"It was more just falling behind, not throwing first-pitch strikes."
On the first-pitch homers --
"They were bad pitches. They put good swings on it, and that's what happens."
Cody Bellinger
On the streak --
"I think we're cooking as a whole team right now. Hopefully, we can take that into the series (Thursday).
"It's just a matter of producing on the field. It's just a matter of time until the talent takes over."
On what he was looking for when he went to the plate in the third --
"It was one of those where you just kind of react. I wanted to be aggressive off of him, and he just gave me a good pitch to do it on."
Banister
(Beltre)
"It was nice to see him drive the baseball tonight. I feel like he's always one hit away, or one swing like that that kind of gets him going in those situations and feel confident that he's going to get back on track and start driving the baseball. In that middle part of the lineup we really need for those guys to continue to progress and take some pressure off some of the other parts of the lineup."
(Perez)
"He was out in the bullpen tonight. Situation where we're going to move him out there and probably use him in some shorter stints, one-to-two-inning type situations. He's got a good arm. We'd like to see what Martin can do in that type of role for us."
(What is Perez's future?)
"We've got a month to take a look at it. We brought him in tonight and talked to him about it. We moved him out there prior to the game. Talked to him after the game. We like Martin - the arm, the stuff. We just feel like it has an opportunity to play up in the bullpen, and we've got some time to do it. We'd like to take a look at it."
(How did you arrive at decision)
"When you look at a left-hander that has a 94, 95 mph fastball, good sinking life on the fastball, does have a breaking ball and there is a plus changeup in there, we just feel like in those type of stints where he's not trying to pace himself in a starter's role, the stuff might play up, the swing and miss might increase. I know we've talked about putting an opener in front of him. The consensus was we felt like this was a situation for a guy that the stuff has an opportunity to trend up and be a very nice option in a bullpen role."
Jeff Banister
On Minor --
"I thought Mike threw the ball really well. A couple of ambush situations there, first pitch, by Machado and Bellinger. Other than that, I thought he threw the ball extremely well. I thought he was in control of what he wanted to do and how he attacked it. He looked sharp tonight."