Pittsburgh Pirates at Los Angeles Dodgers

"I Love L.A." was on repeat this weekend at Dodger Stadium. From the moment Blake Snell tossed his first pitch to when Alex Vesia slammed the door in the ninth, it was all Dodgers as they polished off a three-game sweep of the Pirates with a 4-0 shutout on Sunday afternoon. L.A. is the second team in the Majors to win 80 games, joining Milwaukee. The Dodgers have won six straight games for the second time this season. Before the season-high-tying winning streak, they had lost 11 of their past 16 games. Manager Dave Roberts is hopeful that his team can carry forth this quality of play in the upcoming series against the Braves, who are also in the mix for a first-round postseason bye. "I thought the defense was way better, baserunning better. There were no mental mistakes," Roberts said. "And just kind of overall, I saw better at-bats and beating the starter, which we hadn't done consistently in a while." The Dodgers led from the time Mookie Betts drove in a run while grounding into a double play in the first inning. They got some key contributions from the bottom of the order, with Alek Thomas and Hunter Feduccia knocking back-to-back RBI singles in the fourth inning, and Max Muncy added further insurance with a run-scoring groundout in the fifth. But Sunday was all about run prevention. And all weekend long, starting pitching set the tone. Yoshinobu Yamamoto got the ball rolling with 6 1/3 innings of two-run ball on Friday. Tarik Skubal earned his first win as a Dodger after striking out 11 across seven innings of three-run ball on Saturday. Snell capped the weekend with a commanding outing of his own, striking out six while scattering three walks and two hits across six scoreless innings. The Dodgers have yet to truly see their rotation at full strength -- and that definition changed after the blockbuster deal to acquire Skubal ahead of the Trade Deadline. With Tyler Glasnow set to return on Tuesday and Shohei Ohtani not long behind, L.A.'s dream rotation will soon become reality. "We got a ton of really good arms here, a ton of talent, and it’s just about us going out there and playing baseball and executing," Skubal said. "And when we’re doing that, we’re the best team in the league.”