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LOS ANGELES – Julio Urias became the Dodgers’ first 20-game winner since Clayton Kershaw in 2014, tossing a one-run ball in the seventh inning as Los Angeles beat the Milwaukee Brewers 8-3 on Saturday night to extend the run of the National League West until the last day of the regular season.
The San Francisco Giants (106-55) lost to the San Diego Padres earlier Saturday, reducing their lead to one game. The Dodgers (105-56) must beat the Brewers on Sunday and hope the Giants lose again to tie for the title, which LA has won in the past eight years. That would send the Dodgers and Giants to a 163 tie-breaker game in San Francisco on Monday.
According to ESPN Stats & Information research, this is the first time in MLB history that a division has had multiple teams with 105 wins and the first time they’ve even been in the same league. Neither the Dodgers nor the Giants have led by more than five games all season.
Los Angeles won its 14th consecutive home game, tying a 100-year-old franchise record.
Urias (20-3) allowed a hit, struck out seven strikes and had two assists in 6 ” in his 32nd regular season start, becoming the sole winner of 20 majors games this year and the first Mexican-born pitcher to lead the majors in wins.
The 25-year-old southpaw retired 16 in a row after giving Eduardo Escobar a brace in the first.
Urias started in seventh as part of a double change, handing the ball over to manager Dave Roberts and leaving to a standing ovation from the crowd of 49,705.
Kershaw won 21 matches in 2014, when he won the last of his three Cy Young Awards. Urias became the fourth Mexican-born pitcher to win 20 games in the majors, joining former Dodger Fernando Valenzuela and Teddy Higuera of Milwaukee (both in 1986) and Esteban Loaiza of the Chicago White Sox (2003).
Urias hasn’t lost since June 21 in San Diego.
The Dodgers got a three-run homerun from Justin Turner in first, a two-run shot from AJ Pollock in the fourth and a solo shot from Corey Seager in the fifth, giving them 17 homers in their last four games. Max Muncy’s double RBI in the eighth made it 8-1.
Trea Turner went 2 for 4 to extend his career-high 18-game hitting streak and practically won the National League batting title with an average of .328. His closest competitor, former Washington Nationals teammate Juan Soto, went 0 to 3 against Boston, dropping his average to 0.315.
Turner would become the first Dodger to win a batting crown since Tommy Davis won back-to-back titles in 1962 and 1963.
Willy Adames, who walked, gave the Brewers, center-champions of the National League, an early lead on the field of choice of defensive player Christian Yelich. Urias got Adames back on track with two outs in the sixth before Escobar hit at bat to end the inning.
Adames beat David Price in the ninth for the Brewers’ first hit and first run since the first inning. Tyrone Taylor added an RBI single.
Milwaukee’s Corbin Burnes (11-5) made a brief start, pitching just two innings. The right-hander named in the Cy Young Award conversation allowed three runs and two hits, struck out four and walked one.
The Dodgers tied the franchise record for consecutive home wins set by the Brooklyn Robins. They won 14 in a row at Ebbets Field from April 21 to May 12, 1921. LA won six in a row in total.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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