Dodgers’ Evan Phillips Praises Daniel Hudson For Clutch Gene
Los Angeles Dodgers reliever Daniel Hudson avenged his poor performance on Friday night against the San Francisco Giants with a clutch outing on Saturday in front of nearly 40,000 fans at Oracle Park.
With the Dodgers leading 7-6, Hudson got Nick Ahmed to ground out to shortstop to open the bottom of the 10th, holding automatic runner Brett Wisely at second. Pinch-hitter David Villar ripped an RBI double off the left-field wall to tie the score 7-7 and then things got a little spicy.
LaMonte Wade Jr. was intentionally walked and Heliot Ramos dribbled a grounder to third for an infield single and suddenly the bases were loaded with one out. Manager Dave Roberts called Chris Taylor in for a five-man infield but the rare defensive alignment wasn’t necessary.
Hudson escaped the jam by striking out Patrick Bailey with a nasty 88-mph slider and got Matt Chapman to pop out to Will Smith. He got high praise from a fellow bullpen mate after escaping the jam.
“That guy has done everything in this game,” closer Evan Phillips said of Hudson, who was on the mound when the Washington Nationals clinched their World Series title in 2019. “There’s just nobody better to handle that, no one we trust more in those situations, and I don’t think anyone batted an eye when he got out of it.”
The Dodgers broke the contest open in the top of the 11th scoring seven runs and running away with the 14-7 victory. It was a good thing too because if the game went on any longer, Roberts would have had a player pitch.
“We needed every bit of that,” Roberts said of the seven-run outburst. “We were down to our last arm, and I was thinking about having Miggy Ro pitch that last inning. That’s kind of where we were at. Exhausting all of our arms feels a lot better when you win.”
Photo Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports
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Do position players ever practice pitching? I hate those, hopefully the free RISP change made for extra innings will make those more of a rarity.
Also, Philips did not pitch a “poor outing”. He got hit on a couple of pitches. It happens all the time, doesn’t mean he didn’t pitch well.