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Updated: October 10, 2017
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(Story by Marco Stoovelaar)

Dodgers complete sweep against Diamondsbacks to advance to League Championship Series
Nederlands

PHOENIX, Arizona (USA) - Los Angeles Dodgers won 3-1 on Monday-evening (October 9) against Arizona Diamondbacks to complete a sweep in the best-of-five National League Division Series. Los Angeles opened the Series on Friday with a 9-5 victory, then won Game 2 with an 8-5 score on Saturday.

With the win, the Dodgers advance to the best-of-seven National League Championship Series, which opens on Saturday in Los Angeles. The opponent will be the winner of the Series between the Chicago Cubs and Washington Nationals.

The Dodgers took an early 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning and that proved to be enough. The team added runs in the fifth and sixth innings and collected seven basehits in the game. Two of these hits were homeruns by Cody Bellinger and Austin Barnes. The D-Backs hit only four hits with one of them being a homerun by Daniel Descalso, which accounted for the lone run. Dodger-closer Kenley Jansen earned his second save of the Series.

Starting pitchers were Zack Greinke (Arizona) and Yu Darvish (Los Angeles).

33-year old righthander Zack Greinke was 17-7 this season with 215 strikeouts in 202 1/3 inning. Greinke's Major League-career began in 2004 when he made his debut pitching for the Kansas City Royals for whom he played through 2010 and won the Cy Young Award in 2009. Hereafter, he played for Milwaukee Brewers (2011-2012), Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim(2012) and Los Angeles Dodgers (2013-2015). He signed as a Free Agent with Arizona in December 2015. Last Wednesday, Greinke started the Wild Card Game against Colorado Rockies, but gave up six hits and four runs in 3 2/3 inning. However, Arizona won the game to advance to the NLDS.

31-year old rigthander Yu Darvish was 10-12 this season with a 3.86 ERA and 209 strikeouts in 186 2/3 inning. The Japanese pitcher plays in the Major League since 2012 when he made his debut with Texas Rangers. In July of this year, Darvish was traded to the Dodgers. Before coming to the USA, Darvish pitched in the Japanese Major League for Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters (2005-2011) with whom he won the Japan Series in 2006. Darvish, who has an Iranian father and Japanese mother, was the Pacific League MVP twice (2007, 2009) and was the Best Pitcher once (2007). He pitched for Japan in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing (China) and the 2009 World Baseball Classic.

(October 9)




Before the game started, the national anthem was sung by Roger Clyne and the Peacemakers, a rock band from Tempe (Arizona) which several genres of music, including Southern rock and reggae. The band tours all over the all over the USA annually, playing at festivals, and has produced several albums since 1999.

The ceremonial first pitch in Chase Field was thrown by Olympic swim-champion Michael Phelps. He is the most decorated Olympian of all time with a total of 28 medals. Phelps also is the all-time recordholder with 23 Olympic gold medals. During the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing (China), Phelps won eight gold medals, breaking the record of American Mark Spitz, who won seven in the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich (then-West Germany).

Los Angeles opened the score right away in the top of the first inning. Chris Taylor led off with a double, then Corey Seager walked. Hereafter, Justin Turner lined out to centerfield, but that enabled Taylor to move to third base. Taylor then scored on a following grounder by Cody Bellinger, who played a great game tonight.

With two outs in the top of the fifth inning, the Dodgers doubled their lead when Bellinger homered. At age 22, the rookie became the youngest Dodger-player ever to hit a homerun in the postseason.

In the bottom of the fifth, Arizona scored its lone run when Daniel Descalso homered with two outs off of Yu Darvish. In the first four innings, Darvish had allowed only one batter to reach base and struckout six, including three in the fourth at bat. He began the fifth with his seventh strikeout. After Descalso's homerun, the inning ended with a spectacular catch by first baseman Cody Bellinger on a high pop-up in foul territory by Jeff Mathis. While catching the ball, he tumbled over the railing into the Dodger dug-out, but hold onto the ball and luckily sustained no injuries.

When he hit lead-off hitter Christian Walker with a pitch in the sixth, Darvish was relieved by Tony Cingrani, who then got a double play-grounder. Hereafter, Brandon Morrow took over from Cingrani and closed the inning.

In the top of the sixth, Los Angeles had added an insurance run when Austin Barnes led off with a homerun.

Arizona was retired in order by Morrow in the seventh, then again by Kenta Maeda in the eighth. Kenley Jansen pitched the ninth for the Dodgers. He began with a strikeout, then gave up a single to David Peralta, who moved on a grounder. Jansen then closed the game with another strikeout.



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