Dead-red hitters can’t handle Tarik Skubal’s fastball

Hits were at a premium with both sides combining for seven, and the Dodgers made the most of theirs, out-homering the Reds two-to-one and relying on Tarik Skubal’s best performance as a Dodger to secure a 4-1 win. While Reds starter Nick Lodolo was responsible for all four runs in his seven innings, it doesn’t necessarily reflect just how effectively he held down this potent Dodgers lineup for large periods of the game—especially dealing with such an ungrateful task.

It didn’t take more than a couple of hitters to find out, or at least get a glimpse of the type of performance Skubal was about to bring to the mound. Facing Cincinnati’s most dangerous hitter, Elly De La Cruz, Skubal was down 3-0 in the count following two bad misses, remembering that De La Cruz took him deep last week. The Dodgers’ starter not only got back in the count and punched out De La Cruz, but almost as impressively, he did so in a manner of simply imposing his will that few starting pitchers can even hope to accomplish. Skubal threw three straight heaters, none of them particularly dotted, two up and one down, almost as if indicating that today he’d do as he pleased and the Reds were mere spectators to it.

That initial at-bat against De La Cruz was also indicative of the approach that Skubal would carry into this game. Whether due to a lack of feel for a particular off-speed pitch or, more likely, from an adjustment after seeing the Reds’ swings against the four-seamer, Skubal went to that pitch far more often than he normally does—throwing it 44 percent of the time across seven scoreless innings, needing just 90 pitches to do so.

The first and only time the Reds managed to put multiple players on base against Skubal came in the fifth inning, when Juan Brito singled, and J.J. Bleday walked, later moving to second and third on a wild pitch. In a nine-pitch at-bat, Hector Rodríguez would go down on a four-seam fastball, this one up and well outside the zone. In fact, each of Skubal’s first seven punchouts came on heaters.

Offensively, the Dodgers made the most of their rare hits count, securing just three in seven innings against a dialed-in Nick Lodolo. Unfortunately for the Reds starter, both of the hits he allowed were home runs, first a solo shot to Kyle Tucker in the second and, a couple of innings later, a two-run bomb to Teoscar Hernández.