CHICAGO — James Outman is good at making first impressions.
He hit a home run in his first major-league at-bat and in his first game at Dodger Stadium. He doubled up in his first visit to venerable Wrigley Field, hitting two home runs, including a ninth-inning grand slam that broke a tie and sent the Dodgers to a 6-2 victory over the Chicago Cubs on Thursday night.
The start of the game was delayed an hour for a storm that never really arrived, the rain delay featuring very little (if any) actual rain.
But that gave Mookie Betts time to rejoin the team.
Fresh from becoming a father for the second time, Betts flew into Chicago, hustled to Wrigley Field in time to be activated from the paternity list, hit a pinch-hit single in the seventh inning and played shortstop for the first time since two innings in the Arizona Fall League in 2013. He looked like he had played there all his life when he turned an unassisted double play in the eighth inning.
If you had been told in January that Betts would be playing shortstop in April, you would probably have assumed a lot had gone wrong for the Dodgers in the interim.
More than a couple of things have. The latest could be an injury to fifth starter Michael Grove, potentially putting a third starting pitcher on the injured list less than a month into the season (along with Tony Gonsolin and Ryan Pepiot).
Grove’s first two starts this season were impacted by a strep condition he suffered at the end of March.
But he seemed to be finding his footing in his previous start, allowing just one run over 5⅔ innings against the Cubs last weekend. On Thursday, he allowed just one run in the first three innings – a 420-foot solo home run by Cody Bellinger, doing his best to torment his former team.
The Dodgers matched that with Max Muncy’s eighth home run of the season leading off the second inning and then took the lead on Outman’s homer leading off the third.
But Grove walked Eric Hosmer to start the fourth inning then gave up a double to Trey Mancini. Pitching coach Mark Prior headed to the mound to talk with Grove and soon waved for a trainer. Grove left the game with what was preliminarily diagnosed as a right groin muscle strain.
Phil Bickford gave up an RBI single to Nico Hoerner to tie the score before escaping the fourth inning.
It stayed tied with Bickford, Justin Bruihl and Yency Almonte combining to retire 10 consecutive Cubs at one point.
Finally, in the ninth, David Peralta and Miguel Vargas led off with back-to-back singles. After Betts flew out, Jason Heyward drew a walk to load the bases and bring up Outman.
He worked the count full against Cubs closer Michael Fulmer then lined a cutter into the right field seats for the game-winner.
