Pederson blasts two homers with borrowed bat

LOS ANGELES – The Dodgers guard game strategy with military precision, but there’s no secret when it comes to Joc Pederson.

He plays against right-handed pitchers. He swings with a violent explosiveness. And when he makes barrel contact -- as he did twice Friday night in a 5-0 blanking of the Nationals -- it’s gone.

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Pederson, in fact, has more home runs than singles, 12-10. His average is only .229, but the OPS is .941 and he’s only two home runs behind team leader Cody Bellinger. He’s no happier about being a platoon player than any platoon player, but he seems to make the most of erratic playing time with an all-or-nothing assault on pitches he’s hunting.

“Rhythm, flow, plays a huge role in being consistent, effortless, not overthinking,” said Pederson. “It’s good when you get into the game flow. [Not starting is] tough, it’s something I have to work on. Obviously, we’ve had some long runs of [opposing left-handed starters], and if I have a good game and I don’t play a few days and it’s tough to pick up where you left off, you’re out of rhythm. It’s a mental grind and you’ve got to stick with it. Still working on it so the carryover is not as long in between.”

Manager Dave Roberts, while repeatedly saying that Pederson is “a big part of what we’re doing,” has Pederson’s career difficulties against lefties (.571 OPS vs. LHP, .851 vs. RHP) on his side as he sticks with the platoon. But he still praises Pederson for his impact.

“He knows the strike zone; he’s very good at that,” Roberts said. “Now you layer in the mechanics are sound and knowing where the barrel’s at. Look at a couple years ago, a lot of hard contact, but a lot of balls on the ground. And you work in the mechanics part of it that he’s cleaned up, got the nice trajectory, he’s going to slug. Slugging, hitting to the big part of the field, taking walks -- it’s a very dangerous combination.”

Yet, Pederson conceded he has been struggling. He hadn’t homered since April 21. He came into the game in a 3-for-30 tailspin. It got to his head enough that he resorted to a desperate measure.

“I was scuffling a little bit and picked up Max Muncy’s bat,” Pederson said. “He’s been swinging it well, and it’s got a lot of pop. I don’t know, I guess the rest took care of itself. I like that bat right now. It’s a good bat.”

Pederson now has 11 multi-homer games, and this was his third this season.

He led off the bottom of the first against Anibal Sanchez with a home run halfway up the right-field pavilion, his 14th career leadoff homer, tied for second on the Dodgers’ all-time list with Rafael Furcal but only one-half of Davey Lopes’ 28.

“Got good energy at the start of the game and looking for a good pitch,” he said.

Pederson then led off the fifth inning with a home run into the right-field bullpen. David Freese expanded the lead with a two-run shot with two outs in the seventh inning. The Dodgers are 23-8 in games when they hit at least one home run.

“Definitely not trying to hit homers,” Pederson said. “I tried to my last at-bat [a groundout], and it doesn’t work. I have an overly aggressive swing. I definitely try to hit the ball really hard, because I think good things happen when you hit the ball hard. My goal is to hit the ball on the barrel as much as possible.”

Pederson’s homers gave an early cushion to Kenta Maeda, who delivered his best start of the year, six innings on one hit. Julio Urías followed with a three-inning save, Freese’s pair of insurance runs assured Roberts that there was no need to warm up closer Kenley Jansen.

It was Urias’ second save the week and this was a double qualifier -- entering a game with a lead of three runs or less and pitching at least three innings. The last Dodger to do that was Hyun-Jin Ryu on May 25, 2017. Urias also walked in his only plate appearance, becoming the first Dodgers reliever with a walk and a save in the same game since Jonathan Broxton in 2008.