Baseball

Gallo joins the party as the Dodgers win their 10th straight

LOS ANGELES — After Freddie Freeman took over in March, there was genuine interest to find out if the 2022 Dodgers could finally become one of the most dominant teams of all time.

Through the first few months of the regular season, the Dodgers remained atop the National League West. In the meantime, he warned everyone that they weren’t clicking on all cylinders just yet. The hype subsided a bit.

Well, it’s time to start that conversation again.

The Dodgers made it 10 straight, including an 8-5 victory over the Twins on Wednesday night at Dodger Stadium. During that stretch, they dominated the tournament, winning all 10 games by multiple runs. They have outscored opponents 70-25 during the streak and have completed three straight sweeps.

“We like to win. It’s a lot of fun for all the kids right now,” Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy said. “It’s one thing after another for us. We know we can win. It doesn’t matter what the score is. We can go out there and score and we have the pitching to stop it. It was a fun game.”

What has made Los Angeles so dangerous over the last month and a half is their ability to win in a variety of ways. Over the weekend, Muncie and Cody Bellinger played the hero on Saturday and Sunday, respectively. On Tuesday, the Dodgers smothered the Twins with a season-high eight doubles.

On Wednesday, the Dodgers fell behind early as right-hander Ryan Pepiot didn’t have his best stuff, allowing four runs in his fifth major league start. It was a rare bad outing for a Dodgers starter. But the offense wasn’t going to let the Dodgers go down quietly.

Muncy continued to throw pitches and hit his fourth homer of the month in the second inning. In the top of the fifth, Mookie Betts, Trey Turner and Will Smith combined to tie the game at 4. The Dodgers then turned to the long ball.