LOS ANGELES (AP) — Yoshinobu Yamamoto scattered two hits over six innings, Tommy Edman snapped a scoreless tie with a three-run homer in the sixth and the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Chicago Cubs 3-0 on Friday night.
The World Series champions improved to 7-0 at home and have beaten the NL Central-leading Cubs for the third time, having swept the teams’ season-opening series in Tokyo.
Yamamoto and Matthew Boyd dueled through five scoreless innings. Yamamoto retired 16 of his first 18 batters — eight on strikeouts.
The Dodgers’ only hits off Boyd through five were a pair of singles by Miguel Rojas and Michael Conforto.
Teoscar Hernández singled with one out in the sixth. Boyd then hit before Edman, last year’s NL Championship Series MVP, sent a pitch halfway up the left-field pavilion for a 3-0 lead. It was the first homer given up by Boyd in three starts.
Edman’s sixth homer ties him for the major-league lead with Aaron Judge, Kyle Schwarber and Mike Trout, among others.
Yamamoto (2-1) struck out nine and walked one. Tanner Scott pitched the ninth for his fourth save.
Boyd (1-1) gave up three runs and four hits in six innings. The left-hander struck out seven and walked three.
Kyle Tucker doubled down the first-base line for the Cubs’ first hit in the fourth. Seiya Suzuki followed with a single to right but was out trying to stretch at first while Tucker went to third.
Key moment
Edman, shifted closer to second, chased down a ball hit to his left by Amaya, spun around and fired blindly to first to narrowly get the second out of the sixth in a scoreless game.
Key stat
Shohei Ohtani went hitless in four at-bats with two strikeouts, snapping his consecutive games on-base streak at 29 dating to Sept. 14, 2024.
Up next
Cubs RHP Ben Brown (1-1, 7.71 ERA) opposes touted Dodgers rookie RHP Roki Sasaki (0-0, 4.15), who has yet to get past the fourth inning in his first three starts.
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