The Dodgers dugout sat in silent despondency.
Two rows away, a Dodgers fan stood and flexed his arms.
Ahead of them ran the bases the club’s new foe number one: a decent MLB slugger who, during his visits to Dodger Stadium in recent years, suddenly performed like a cross between Barry Bonds and Babe Ruth.
Christian Walker once again wore the Dodgers jersey number.
For the second straight night, he hit two home runs to lead the Arizona Diamondbacks to a 9-3 victory in the deciding game at Chavez Ravine.
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Walker already had a reputation as a Dodgers killer going into the week. In 87 previous games against the club, he had slugged 22 homers and collected 50 RBIs. His numbers against franchise icon Clayton Kershaw were particularly good, with a .294 career batting average against the future Hall of Famer.
“I have some ideas,” Kershaw, who is still sidelined after midseason shoulder surgery, told reporters Thursday afternoon about how the team could neutralize Walker in the series finale. “For our guys, not for you guys.”
Whatever Kershaw thought, it apparently didn’t work.
Instead, Walker hit a home run in the season opener on Tuesday, then two more in Arizona’s crushing win over the Dodgers on Wednesday night. He continued his weeklong streak with two more home runs on Thursday, cementing his name in recent Dodger Stadium history.
Since 2002, Walker’s 19 home runs at the Ballpark are tied for the most by any visiting player, tied with former Diamondbacks star Paul Goldschmidt. Among visiting players with at least 100 plate appearances at the Ballpark during that span, Walker’s .783 slugging percentage ranks first, while his .341 batting average ranks second.
Walker hit both home runs off rookie Dodgers starter Landon Knack on Thursday.
In the first inning, he followed up a Joc Pederson home run with a solo blast of his own. In the third, Walker hit a two-run shot to deep left field, helping Arizona take a 4-0 lead.
Perhaps the most telling moment of Walker’s Dodgers dominance, however, came in the top of the fifth. With a runner on second, two outs and left-handed reliever Anthony Banda on the mound, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts held up four fingers from the dugout.
A purposeful walk.
For a hitter who had a .257 batting average with an OPS of .788 this year in stadiums other than Dodger Stadium.
Walker would only have one more hit the rest of the night (he had two three-out and eight thirteen-out games on Thursday with five home runs and nine RBIs), but his contributions were enough to give the Diamondbacks the decisive victory in the series.
The Dodgers scored three runs in the fourth inning on an RBI ground-out by Kiké Hernández and a two-run single by Austin Barnes.
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But after Freddie Freeman made a fielding blunder in the fifth inning that gave the Diamondbacks back a multi-run lead, Arizona’s bullpen held the door shut over the final five innings, while their lineup scored four more insurance runs in the ninth inning.
A bigger concern for the Dodgers on Thursday was outfielder Jason Heyward, who left the game after two innings due to soreness in his left knee.
Heyward got only one plate appearance Thursday, grounding out in the first inning, but also appeared shaken after leaping onto the wall in right field to hit Pederson’s home run.
The veteran has been in a slump recently, having scored just three goals in his last 11 games out of 34.
But he remained a key part of their outfield platoon, playing right field most days, as the Dodgers featured a slew of right-handed pitchers.
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
