Utley, Urias lift Dodgers over Reds
CINCINNATI -- Chase Utley homered and Julio Urias pitched six shutout innings to send the Los Angeles Dodgers to a 4-0 win over the Cincinnati Reds on Sunday afternoon at Great American Ball Park.
The Dodgers (68-55) snapped a three-game losing skid and moved into a first-place tie with San Francisco in the National League West. The Giants were scheduled to face the Mets on Sunday night.
The loss ended a five-game winning streak for the Reds, who actually out-hit the Dodgers 9-8 on Sunday but stranded six and went 0-for-4 with runners in scoring position.
The Reds are 21-13 since the All-Star break and won the first two games of the series by a combined score of 20-3. But, they couldn't break through on Sunday against Urias, who just turned 20 on Aug. 12.
Urias allowed six hits and had six strikeouts over 97 pitches. The Dodgers' offense helped out the youngster with some early runs.
After not hitting a homer in the first two games of the series, the Dodgers finally went deep in this first inning on Sunday when Utley crushed the fourth pitch from DeSclafani for his 11th of the season, putting the Dodgers up 1-0.
Andrew Toles, recalled from Triple-A prior to Sunday's game, reached on an infield hit then scored on Utley's single in the third. Corey Seager delivered another RBI hit to make the score 3-0 and extend his hitting streak to 12 games.
After giving up a couple hits in the first, Urias rolled through the next four frames retiring 10 straight in one stretch. He faced two batters over the minimum on 78 pitches through five.
Adrian Gonzalez singled leading off the sixth to extend his hitting streak to 14 games then scored on Joc Pederson's sacrifice fly to increase the Dodgers' lead to 4-0.
Urias (4-2) worked out of his first real jam in the sixth when he got Adam Duvall to pop out stranding runners at first and third.
DeSclafani (7-2) managed to pitch seven innings despite struggling with his command for much of the afternoon. He gave up four runs on eight hits with a walk and six strikeouts over 104 pitches.
NOTES: The Dodgers recalled OF Andrew Toles from Triple-A Oklahoma City and optioned INF Chris Taylor to Triple-A. ... The Reds gave 1B Joey Votto and RF Scott Schebler days off on Sunday. ... Reds SS Zack Cozart will be out for a couple of more days because of right knee and left Achilles discomfort. ... Dodgers OF Andre Ethier, on the disabled list with a broken right tibia, has resumed taking batting practice and running. There is no timetable for his return.