Dalton Rushing snapped out of a slump during Dodgers’ win over Phillies

PHILADELPHIA — Dodgers catcher Dalton Rushing fought to end his skid.

He held up on a curveball from Phillies right-hander Aaron Nola that clipped the bottom of the strike zone. He fouled off a changeup. And he stayed disciplined as Nola tried to get him to chase a fastball up and two breaking balls in the dirt.

In a full count, Rushing fouled off another changeup. And then, finally, Nola made a mistake.

Rushing hammered the grooved fastball to left-center field, just shy of the Citizens Bank Park concourse.

“It’s pretty obvious I’ve been fighting recently,” Rushing said after the game. “The more you try in this game to fight out of a hole, the deeper you dig yourself in a hole. So I think that’s what it’s been recently. And today it was, obviously, you get a good start to the day, and it’s kind of uphill. Yeah, I wouldn’t say it was anything different. I just trusted myself today.”

It was the Dodgers’ first run during a 9-5 win and Rushing’s first hit in more than two weeks. Over the course of nine hitless games, he went 0-for-19.

Rushing has been the Dodgers’ starting catcher since early June, when Will Smith was first sidelined with a neck injury. And the Dodgers will continue to rely on him, with Smith out indefinitely.

“What stood out is he’s learning on the run, learning on the job, thrust into it,” manager Dave Roberts said. “But I do think that the last couple weeks, some of the struggles have helped him, and I think they’ll help him down the road, whether it’s at bat, behind the plate, and staying with game plans and things like that. So yeah, there’s a learning curve, but this is going to be good for him.”

Rushing has embraced the defensive/pitcher-management side of his job as his top priority. But at his best, Rushing (.812 OPS this season) can impact games on both sides.

His performance Wednesday was another glimpse of that upside.

“I wasn’t used to the [backup] role last year, and by no means do I want to say I wished for this opportunity,” Rushing said. “But I was making sure if it was given, that I was going to do my best to show them that I could play, show them I’m going to be in this league and play down here for as long as I possibly can.”

Rushing provided the Dodgers with their first run of the game with a homer in his first at-bat. Then, in his second, he worked a 2-2 count, before roping a curveball up the right-field line for a go-ahead two-run double.

“I just saw less effort,” Roberts said. “For him to come out after a four-strikeout game [Monday] and take a day to reset, come back and take good at-bats, I just saw the downshift. I saw a controlled at-bat.”

In addition to the pair of hits that made for a three-RBI day, Roberts complimented Rushing’s at-bat against left-handed reliever Tim Mayza — a tough matchup for the left-handed batter — that ended in a lineout to third.

“Certainly, having Will down, we need him right now,” Roberts said. “We need him to be the player that he expects, that we expect, and that comes with a mindset. And tonight was a clinic on how a baseball player should play a baseball game.”

The Phillies tied up the game in the bottom half of that fifth inning. Dodgers starting pitcher Eric Lauer, who had already given up a two-run home run to Alec Bohm in the first inning, surrendered a solo shot to Bryan De La Cruz to lead off the fifth. Those were the only runs he allowed in 5 ⅓ innings.

In the sixth, Dodgers veteran third baseman Max Muncy delivered a go-ahead solo home run, his second home run in as many games and 20th of the year. That blast was also Muncy’s 229th as a Dodger, moving him into sole possession of No. 5 on the franchise’s all-time list.

To put the final touches on the Dodgers’ offensive effort, Kyle Tucker hit a sacrifice fly and Tommy Edman hit a bases-clearing triple for a four-run Dodgers rally in the eighth inning. That gave them enough of a cushion to weather a ninth-inning comeback attempt from the Phillies.