On Friday afternoon, a few hours before he contributed three hits in an 8-4 victory over St. Louis, Yasiel Puig staged a photo inside the Los Angeles Dodgers’ training room. Slump-ridden for weeks, Puig chose to cloak his discontent with humour. So he snapped a picture of Enrique Hernandez with a pair of bats strapped up to one of the team’s electronic stimulation devices.
“Trying to extract hits,” Puig wrote on Twitter. “Puig’s bat is next.”
The amateur witchcraft, combined with a more tempered approach at the plate, bore fruit on Friday night. Puig completed his first three-hit game since April 6 as the Dodgers (19-17) capitalized on a slew of Cardinals mistakes in the series opener. The offense scored more than seven runs for just the fourth time this season.
Puig notched an infield single in the second inning. He drove in a run with a single in the single in the fourth. Two innings later, he muscled an opposite-field home run over the low fence in the right-field corner.
The Dodgers used five relievers to protect Ross Stripling’s first big-league victory. Stripling outlasted Michael Wacha, his former teammate and roommate at Texas A&M, for five innings of four-run baseball. The Dodgers scored six runs while Wacha was on the mound, though only two of them were earned.
As it has so often since his debut in 2013, the pregame discussion concerned Puig. He hit .184 during the first 10 games in May. He looked vulnerable to offspeed pitches, unable to stop himself from swinging away at balls. Manager Dave Roberts insisted Puig had heard the club’s message about the value of patience.
“He’s not going up there trying to swing at balls out the strike zone,” Roberts said before the game. “That’s not his intent. I’m certain of that.”
Roberts reported confidence in Puig’s progress this week. Puig recorded only two hits during a four-game series against the Mets, but he did sting several balls that found gloves instead of grass. On Friday, he experienced the opposite phenomenon, when he was graced with good luck.
The Dodgers stoked a three-run rally in the second after Cardinals shortstop Aledmys Diaz bobbled a grounder from Adrian Gonzalez. Puig ripped a groundball up the middle, where it ticked off Wacha’s glove. He was credited with a single, and Joc Pederson loaded the bases with a walk.
Up came Trayce Thompson. He had not batted since Tuesday, when he came off the bench for a walkoff home run. He kept the baseball in the park this time, but he did splash a two-run single into centre field.
Wacha was drifting toward oblivion, until A.J. Ellis lined out to Diaz. Pederson lost track of Diaz behind him, and allowed himself to be thrown out. The double play appeared to squash the rally, with Stripling stepping into the box.
Stripling had yet to record a hit in the majors. He never hit in high school, never hit in college and rarely wielded a bat in the minor leagues. Yet during the week, as he traded barbs with Wacha, the majority of their verbiage centred on who could hit better against the other. Stripling wanted to win the contest.
Wacha flung a 94-mph fastball, high and away. Stripling dumped the pitch into right for an opposite-field single. Howie Kendrick copied his approach in the next at-bat, driving in a run by shooting another outside fastball into right.
The Dodgers kept hounding Wacha in the third. Gonzalez cracked a one-out double. Two batters later, Pederson smashed a 94-mph fastball off the centre-field wall for a double to score Gonzalez.