When Los Angeles County Museum of Art director Michael Govan first stepped up to the podium at the museum’s star-packed 14th annual Art + Film Gala, the Dodgers were down one point to the Toronto Blue Jays in the eighth inning of the final game of the World Series.
There was no giant screen in the massive tent where a decadent dinner was being served Saturday night in celebration of honorees artist Mary Corse and director Ryan Coogler. Instead guests in elaborate gowns and tuxedos discreetly glanced at their phones propped on tables and at the base of flower vases across the star-packed venue. This became apparent when Miguel Rojas hit a game-tying home run at the top of the ninth inning and the whole room erupted in cheers.
Michael Govan, CEO of LACMA, wearing Gucci, speaks onstage during the 2025 LACMA Art+Film Gala.
(Amy Sussman / Getty Images for LACMA)
When Govan returned to the stageto begin the well-deserved tributes to the artist and filmmaker of the hour, the game had been won, the effusive cheering had died down, and the phones had been respectfully put away.
“Go Dodgers!” Govan said, before joking that LACMA had engineered the win for this special evening. The room was juiced.
It made Los Angeles feel like the center of the universe for a few hours and was fitting for an event that famously brings together the city’s twin cultural bedrocks of art and cinema, creating a rarefied space where the two worlds mix and mingle in support of a shared vision of recognizing L.A.’s immeasurable contributions to the global cultural conversation.
“This is a celebration that can only happen in L.A. — where art, film and creativity are deeply intertwined,” Govan said. “I always say this is the most creative place on Earth.”
The event raised a record $6.5 million in support of the museum and its programs. Co-chairs Leonardo DiCaprio and LACMA trustee Eva Chow hosted a cocktail party and dinner that drew celebrities including Dustin Hoffman, Cynthia Erivo, Cindy Crawford, Queen Latifah, Angela Bassett, Lorde, Demi Moore, Hannah Einbinder, Charlie Hunnam and Elle Fanning alongside local elected officials and appointees including U.S. Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Los Angeles); L.A. County Supervisors Holly Mitchell and Lindsey Horvath; L.A. Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky; West Hollywood Councilmember John M. Erickson, and Kristin Sakoda, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Arts and Culture.
Sakoda said she thoroughly enjoyed the festivities “as representative of the incredibly diverse culture of Los Angeles and how that speaks to our entire nation.”
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1.George Lucas arrives at the LACMA Art + Film Gala on Saturday.(Jordan Strauss / Invision via Associated Press)2.Elle Fanning arrives at the LACMA Art + Film Gala on Saturday.(Jordan Strauss / Invision via Associated Press)3.Angela Bassett arrives at the LACMA Art + Film Gala on Saturday.(Jordan Strauss / Invision via Associated Press)
A special nod of gratitude went to previous gala honorees in attendance including artists Mark Bradford, James Turrell, Catherine Opie, Betye Saar, Judy Baca, George Lucas and Park Chan-Wook. Leaders from many other local arts institutions also showed up including the Hammer Museum’s director, Zoe Ryan; California African American Museum Director Cameron Shaw; and MOCA’s interim Director Ann Goldstein.
Rising in the background was LACMA’s new David Geffen Galleries, the 110,000-square-foot Peter Zumthor-designed building scheduled to open in April as the new home for the museum’s 150,000-object permanent collection.
“Every day I’m in that little building behind installing thousands of artworks,” Govan said to cheers. “I can’t wait for people to rediscover our permanent collection, from old favorites to new acquisitions. It’s a monumental gift to L.A., and in addition to L.A. County and the public, I would like to thank the person whose generosity brought us to this landmark moment, Mr. David Geffen.”
Geffen sat in a sea of black ties and glittering gowns, near Disney CEO Bob Iger and DiCaprio — who had been filmed earlier in the week in attendance at Game 5 of the World Series at Dodger Stadium.
Govan also gave a special acknowledgment to former LACMA board co-chair, Elaine Wynn, who died earlier this year and was one of the museum’s most steadfast champions. Wynn contributed $50 million to the new building — one of the first major gifts in support of the effort. Govan noted that the northern half of the building will be named the Elaine Wynn wing.
Honoree Ryan Coogler, wearing Gucci, speaks onstage during the 2025 LACMA Art+Film Gala.
(Amy Sussman / Getty Images for LACMA)
Left unmentioned was the fact that earlier in the week LACMA’s employees announced they are forming a union, LACMA United, representing more than 300 workers from across all departments, including curators, educators, guest relations associates and others. One worker told The Times there were no plans to demonstrate at the gala, which raises much-needed funds for the museum.
The crowd sat rapt as the night’s guests of honor, Corse and Coogler, humbly spoke of their journeys in their respective art forms, with Govan introducing them as “artists whose brilliant groundbreaking work challenges us to see the world differently.”
The night concluded with an enthusiastic performance by Doja Cat on an outdoor stage in the shadow of the David Geffen Galleries, the lights girding its massive concrete underbelly like stars in the sky.
“It was a beautiful evening of community coming together around something that reminds us of our shared humanity at a time when we need it,” said Yaroslavsky with a smile as the evening wound down.
The listless team of the previous two games was gone. The inspired team of the previous month was back.
Earlier this week fans were asking, who are those guys? On Friday they emphatically answered that question by finally, forcefully, being themselves.
Faced with elimination in Game 6 of the World Series, the Dodgers rose from the presumed dead to haunt the Toronto Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre with a 3-1 victory to knot the duel at three games apiece.
And they did with the most unlikely of saves, a game-ending double play on a lineout that Kiké Hernández caught in left field and threw to Miguel Rojas at second base.
How do the Blue Jays come back from that? How can the Dodgers not gain all the momentum from that?
The quest to become the first team in 25 years to win consecutive World Series championships lives.
The stage is set for all sorts of dramatics after a night when the Dodgers took an early three-run lead on the back of slump-busting Betts and then cruised to victory on the back of another brilliant pitching performance by Yamamoto and a surprising three-inning shutdown from the Dodger bullpen.
It didn’t end smoothly, but it ended splendidly, after reliever Roki Sasaki began the ninth by hitting Alejandro Kirk in the hand with a two-strike pitch, then Addison Barger hit a ball to center field that lodged under the outfield tarp for a ground-rule double.
With runners on second and third and no out, Tyler Glasnow made an emergency appearance and recorded that memorable save, retiring Ernie Clement on a first pitch popout and ending the game by inducing Andrés Giménez into a lineout that Hernandez perfectly threw to Rojas.
The Dodgers have been here before. It was just last year, in fact, when they needed consecutive wins against the San Diego Padres in the division series to save their season.
They calmly won both and rolled to a championship. A similar path could end in a similar destination this weekend after the Dodgers rebounded from two lifeless losses at Dodger Stadium to weather the loud Game 6 storm with calm and cohesion.
“Yeah, I mean, we all know that everything has to go perfect for us to be able to pull this off,” said Teoscar Hernández before the game.
So far, so good, beginning Friday with the much-maligned Betts, who smacked a two-out, two-run single in the third inning to give the Dodgers a lead they never lost. Next up, Yamamoto, who followed consecutive complete games by giving up one run on five hits in six innings.
Enter the bullpen, which had given up nine runs in the Dodgers three losses in this series. But the sense of dread lightened when Justin Wrobleski worked around a two-out double by Clement to end the seventh with a strikeout of Giménez.
On came Sasaki, who immediately found trouble in the eighth inning by yielding a single to George Springer and walking Vladimir Guerrero Jr. But the rookie remained calm, and retired Bo Bichette on a foul popout and Daulton Varsho on a grounder.
This set up the breathtaking ninth, the inspired Dodger tone actually set by manager Dave Roberts a day earlier. Roberts did his best Tommy Lasorda imitation by literally leaving it all on the field during Thursday’s day off when he challenged speedster Hyeseong Kim to a race around the bases. Roberts gave himself a generous head start, but as Kim was passing him up around second base, Roberts tripped and fell flat on his face.
The moment was caught on a video that quickly spread over social media and actually led the FOX broadcast before Friday’s game.
Roberts looked silly. But Roberts also looked brilliant, as his pratfall injected some necessary lightness into the darkening team mood.
“I clearly wasn’t thinking,” said Roberts. “I was trying to add a little levity, that’s for sure. I wasn’t trying to do a face-plant at shortstop, and yeah, the legs just gave way. That will be the last full sprint I ever do in my life.”
He lost, but he won.
“Of course it makes you smile and it makes you have a good time,” said Rojas. “When the head of the group is…loose like that, and he’s willing to do anything, that’s what it tells everybody, that he will do anything for the team.”
The spark was lit in the third inning Friday after Blue Jay starter Kevin Gausman had struck out six of the first seven batters.
Tommy Edman, one of last fall’s postseason heroes, ripped a one-out double down the right-field line. One out later, after Ohtani had been intentionally walked, Will Smith ripped an RBI double off the left-field wall.
It was the Dodgers first hit with runners in scoring position since the fifth inning of Game 3, but the surprise was just beginning.
After Freddie Freeman walked, the bases were loaded for Betts, who was the biggest villain of the Dodgers hitting drought with a .130 World Series average while stranding 25 consecutive baserunners. He had been dropped to third in the batting order in Game 5, and then dropped again to fourth for Game 6, and it finally worked, as he knocked a two-strike fastball into left field to drive in two runs and give the Dodgers a 3-0 lead.
The Blue Jays came back with an heroic run in the bottom of the third when, after Addison Barger doubled down the left-field line, wincing George Springer fought off a painful side injury to drive a ball into right-center field to score Barger.
TORONTO — As soon as Blake Treinen entered for the ninth inning of Game 5 of the World Series on Wednesday night, Clayton Kershaw dropped his guard and began to look around.
For the previous three hours, the future Hall of Fame pitcher had been locked in on the game, mentally preparing for a potential relief appearance from out in the bullpen.
But when that didn’t come, the 37-year-old Kershaw then let himself relax, took in the scene of an October night at Chavez Ravine, and soaked up the final moments of what was his final game ever at Dodger Stadium.
“It’s a weird thought, of like, ‘This is your last game ever there,’” said Kershaw, who announced last month he will retire at the end of this season. “And not a sad thought. Honestly, just a grateful thought. Just like, ‘Man, we spent a lot of great times here.’”
Win or lose in Games 6 and 7 of this World Series, Kershaw’s overall career will end this weekend at Rogers Centre in Toronto. But on Wednesday night, he closed the book on the ballpark he has called home for all 18 seasons of his illustrious MLB career.
Dodger Stadium is where Kershaw first made his big-league debut back in May 2008, as a highly anticipated left-handed prospect with a big curveball and quiet demeanor. It was the stage for his rise to stardom over the nearly two decades that followed, as he went on to capture three Cy Young Awards, 2014 National League MVP honors and a career 2.53 ERA that ranks as the best among pitchers with 1,000 innings in the live ball era.
It is where he experienced some of the most defining moments of his career, including a no-hitter in 2014 and his 3,000th strikeout earlier this year. It’s also where he suffered repeated October disappointments, none bigger than the back-to-back home runs he gave up in Game 5 of the 2019 National League Division Series.
In other words, it was always home for Kershaw, the place he would return to day after day, year after year, season after season — no matter the highs or lows, aches and pains, successes or failures.
“I just started thinking about it when the game ended,” said Kershaw, who elected to traverse the field to get back to the clubhouse after Wednesday’s game instead of the connected bullpen tunnel. “I was like, ‘Man, I might as well walk across this thing one more time.’”
About an hour later, Kershaw would linger on the field a little longer, joined for an impromptu gathering by his wife, Ellen; their four children; and other family and friends in attendance for his last home game.
“Ellen just texted after and was like, ‘Hey, we got a big crew,’” Kershaw said. “So I was, ‘Well, just go to the field. I’ll try to shower fast so we can hang out.’”
Television cameras caught Kershaw laughing as his kids ran the bases, tried to throw baseballs at a hovering drone and enjoyed a diamond that had become their own personal childhood playground over the years.
At one point, Kershaw posed with the Dodger Stadium grounds crew for a picture — standing on a mound they had manicured for all of his 228 career starts in the stadium.
“Honestly, it was awesome,” Kershaw said. “It was the perfect way to do it. Just have everybody out there, running around … It was unplanned, unprompted, but a great memory.”
Kershaw, of course, is hoping to add one more Dodger Stadium memory next week. If the team can reverse its three-games-to-two deficit in the World Series this weekend in Toronto, it would return to Chavez Ravine for a championship celebration.
If not, though, he’ll have a couple parting moments to cherish, from Wednesday’s postgame scene down on the field, to his final career Dodger Stadium outing back in Game 4 in which he stranded the bases loaded in the 12th for one of the biggest outs in his entire career.
“I’m super grateful with how that went, as opposed to the last time before that,” he quipped, having given up five runs in his only other Dodger Stadium appearance this postseason. “You can’t plan any of that stuff. Who knows if it ever works out. But yeah, to get that one last out was pretty cool.”
Dodgers catcher Ben Rortvedt connects for a double against the Cincinnati Reds during Game 2 of the National League Wildcard Series at Dodger Stadium on Oct. 1.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
Neither Alex Call nor Ben Rortvedt had appeared in a playoff game until this season. And though neither Dodger reserve got off the bench in the first two games of the World Series, they’re a lot closer to the action then they expected to be before the July trades that brought them to Los Angeles.
“It’s really cool. I’m just soaking it all in,” said Call, who came over from the Washington Nationals at the deadline.
“It’s been a whirlwind,” added Rortvedt, who was acquired from the Tampa Bay Rays, then spent most of the summer in triple A before being called up when Will Smith got hurt in early September. “I’ve been taking it more day by day, so it hasn’t kind of struck me as much as people think it would. Definitely when this is done I’m really going to reflect and kind of realize how crazy it has been to kind of be on this team and be where we are now.”
Call, 31, who also played with the Cleveland Guardians in a five-year big-league career, appeared in one game in each of the Dodgers’ first three playoff series, going three for four with two walks, getting hit by a pitch and scoring a run.
“It’s kind of crazy because it feels like it should have been harder,” Call said of reaching the World Series. “With the Nats, it’s like we were going to have to grind our way all the way to the top. And then you get to come over the Dodgers and you’re the favorites, World Series champs. You’ve got probably the best roster ever assembled, with amazing stars up and down the lineup, and then they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, we want Alex Call on our team.’
“That’s kind of an amazing compliment.”
Rortvedt, 28, who also played with the Yankees and Minnesota Twins in four seasons, started the first four games of the postseason and hit .429.
“If I pinch myself, it’s kind of like I’m not sure [I’m here,]” he said. “I just try to be as prepared as I can, understand the magnitude of things, and just try to be prepared and try to slow everything down and do my best.”
So far this postseason, whenever Dodgers fans heard “Báilalo Rocky” ring through the loudspeakers, that meant two things were coming — pitcher Roki Sasaki was about to throw some vicious splitters in relief, and a Dodgers win was likely just a few outs away.
Sasaki’s walkout music has taken on a life of its own, in part because of the only-in-L.A. culture clash that has a sensational Japanese pitcher embracing a Latin club hit as he dominates the postseason. It’s helped cement Sasaki’s appeal among the Latino Dodgers faithful, and given the song a huge global boost as the Dodgers prepare for the start of World Series today.
Here’s a primer on how Sasaki found his hype track, and how it’s become the breakout hit of L.A. this fall.
So who wrote “Báilalo Rocky?”
The version of the song Sasaki walks out to is by Dj Roderick and Dj Jose Gonzalez and vocalist Ariadne Arana (there’s another popular version by Arana, the Dominican MC Yoan Retro and GMBeats Degranalo).
The song is a super-infectious and chantable dembow-house track, and its Spanish hook — “¡Báilalo, Rocky! / Ta, ta, ta, ta / Suéltale, suéltale” — is an invitation for a guy to dance and cut loose. But here, it’s directed at the young phenom Sasaki to bedevil hitters when he comes out in relief. The way Arana pronounces the hook makes it sound like she’s singing right at the Dodgers’ Roki.
That’s a left-field choice for a 23-year-old pitcher from Japan in his first year in L.A.. How did Sasaki discover it?
Dodgers veteran second baseman Miguel Rojas turned him onto the song during spring training this year, where it became a dugout favorite. (The whole dugout is known to pound on the railing when the track comes on.) Sasaki started using it in April, before a four-month recovery from a right shoulder impingement.
The theme song “was actually MiggyRo’s idea,” Sasaki said to press in Japanese last week. “I’m really happy the fans are enjoying it.”
There’s a delightful incongruity to the modest, laser-focused young Japanese pitcher walking out to a lascivious Latin club banger. But as Sasaki has rebounded from an injury-plagued midseason to become the Dodgers’ lights-out reliever in the postseason, ”It’s been special,” Rojas told press last week. “I feel like it just fits him really well.”
For her part, Arana loves the song’s new life as a hit Dodger theme. “The Dodgers are my team,” she’s said.
Has Sasaki’s blessing boosted the track?
Definitely. The song was already popular in Latin music circles, and it’s become a go-to cover and source material for Latin artists like corridos tumbados singer Tito Doble P and Lomiiel. Even other athletes, like Spanish soccer superstar Lamine Yamal, have gotten in on the track as a meme. It’s racked up tens of millions in Spotify and YouTube plays, where nearly every comment is now Sasaki-related.
In September, Sasaki was pitching for triple-A Oklahoma City and seemed unlikely to win a roster spot back in L.A. anytime soon. Two months later, however, after clutch saves and eye-popping velocity against the Reds, Phillies and Brewers en route to the World Series, he’s having “One of the great all-time appearances out of the ‘pen that I can remember,” as Dodgers manager Dave Roberts called it.
Sasaki’s not the only Dodger with an unexpected Latin walkout track — last year’s World Series hero Freddie Freeman takes the plate to Dayvi and Victor Cardenas’ “Baila Conmigo (ft. Kelly Ruiz).”
But if the Dodgers take home the title thanks to clutch Sasaki saves, Rojas hopes for a full “Báilalo Roki” edit. “I think he deserves a video and the lights go down and all that stuff,” Rojas told MLB.com. “I think that’s the next step for him.”
Game 1 kicks off Friday. The first two games facing the Toronto Blue Jays will be away, with the Dodgers returning home for Games 3 and 4. Local restaurants and bars are preparing for back-to-back World Series wins by hauling in extra TVs and adding food and drink specials.
Whether you’re heading to Dodger Stadium and looking for a pre- or post-game destination or just want to be in the thick of Dodger madness, keep reading for 11 places near the stadium that are screening all of the games:
If you crossed “see the Dodgers in the World Series” off your bucket list last year, here’s a bucket list update for you: See the Dodgers in the World Series, from the comfort of a hotel room with a full view of the field.
Not at Dodger Stadium, of course. In Toronto, however, where a hotel is built into the ballpark and 55 rooms allow you to open the curtains and catch the game without a ticket.
During the World Series, the nightly rate for these rooms starts at $3,999 (in Canadian dollars, or about $2,850 in U.S. dollars).
A view of the field from one of the rooms at the Toronto Marriott City Centre.
You have to get to Toronto, and that costs a lot of money too. But you don’t need to pay separately for game tickets and a hotel, and you can get room service instead of standing in line at concession stands.
The rooms include chairs that face the field, so you don’t have to stand on your bed to catch the action. And you never know: a player could toss you a ball during batting practice, right through your window. Take a look:
Wow, what a week in sports. USC defeats Michigan, a Dodger pitches a complete game for the first time in the postseason since 2004 and they sweep the Brewers to go to the World Series for the second consecutive year after being 0-6 against Milwaukee during the regular season. Perhaps Michael Conforto will be added to the roster and win MVP in the World Series.
Jeff Hershow Woodland Hills
While basically sleepwalking through the first three games of the NLCS, Shohei Ohtani saves his best for last. He goes “Hollywood” and produces the single greatest performance in MLB history as the final curtain comes down on the Milwaukee Brewers and extends the Dodgers’ magical journey to repeat as World Series champions.
Stay tuned for the sequel!
Rick Solomon Lake Balboa
It’s a bird, it’s a plane … no, it’s superhuman Shohei! He pitches a shutout, strikes out 10, and hits three tape-measure home runs. Wow!
Marty Zweben Palos Verdes Estates
In the history of Major League Baseball, has there ever been a player like Shohei Ohtani? I don’t think so. Shohei is the best ever. Enough said.
Chris Sorce Fountain Valley
Now that the Dodgers have effortlessly powered their way back into the World Series, it’s quite obvious that $400 million actually does buy what it used to!
Jack Wolf Westwood
At last, the second coming of the Dodgers has happened. We’ve been waiting for it and hoping for it, and now it’s here. Great offense, great defense and superb pitching. Our new chant should be “all the way L.A., all the way.”
Cheryl Creek Anaheim
Statistically speaking, there is a case to be made in comparing the postseason accomplishments of Sandy Koufax and Blake Snell. From a historical perspective, there is no comparison.
Koufax is a legendary lifetime Dodger who pitched until he physically was no longer able to do so. Snell famously refused to take the ball in his last Giants start to save himself for a free agency money windfall.
Bill Waxman Simi Valley
Stop the presses! The world is still spinning on its axis! Holy Toledo, Dave Roberts finally figured out a starting pitcher’s arm doesn’t fall off after 100 pitches. Too bad he didn’t come to that revelation during Blake Snell’s Game 1 performance, but better late than never as the saying goes.
Two days ago, Shohei Ohtani rolled into Dodger Stadium as a man on a mission.
After struggling for the previous couple weeks — mired in a postseason slump that had raised questions about everything from his out-of-sync swing mechanics to the physical toll of his two-way duties — the soon-to-be four-time MVP decided it was time to change something up.
Over the previous seven games, going back to the start of the National League Division Series, the $700-million man had looked nothing like himself. Ohtani had two hits in 25 at-bats. He’d recorded 12 strikeouts and plenty more puzzling swing decisions. And he seemed, in the estimation of some around the team, unusually perturbed as public criticisms of his play started to mount.
So, during the team’s off-day workout Wednesday at Dodger Stadium, ahead of Game 3 of the NL Championship Series, Ohtani informed the club’s hitting coaches he wanted to take batting practice on the field.
It was a change from his normal routine — and signaled his growing urgency to get back on track.
“If this was a regular-season situation and you’re looking at an expanse of small sample — eight, nine games, whatever it might be — he probably wouldn’t be out on the field,” manager Dave Roberts said later.
But “with the urgency [of] the postseason,” the manager continued, Ohtani “wanted to make an adjustment on his own.”
Whatever Ohtani found that day, evidently (and resoundingly) clicked. He led off Game 3 with a triple. He entered Game 4 looking more comfortable with his swing. And then, in one of the incredible individual displays ever witnessed in playoff history, he lifted the Dodgers straight into the World Series.
In a 5-1 defeat of the Milwaukee Brewers that completed an NLCS sweep and gave the Dodgers their 26th pennant in franchise history, Ohtani hit three home runs as a hitter, and struck out 10 batters over six-plus scoreless innings as a pitcher.
Shohei Ohtani pitches during Game 4 of the NLCS against the Brewers. Ohtani struck out 10 over six scoreless innings for the Dodgers.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
He made his previously disappointing playoffs a suddenly forgotten memory, earning NLCS MVP honors and to the astonished amazement of all 52,883 in attendance.
And he delivered the kind of game the baseball world dreamed about when the two-way phenom first arrived from Japan, fulfilling the prophecy that accompanied him as a near-mythical prospect eight years earlier.
Back then, Ohtani’s 100-mph fastball and wicked off-speed repertoire had tantalized evaluators. His majestic left-handed swing had tortured pitchers in his home country.
Not since Babe Ruth had the sport seen anything like him.
There were some early growing pains (and injuries) during his transition to the majors. But over the last five years, he blossomed in the game’s definitive face.
A look at the three home runs Shohei Ohtani hit in Game 4 of the NLCS on Friday.
All that had been missing, in a resume chock full of MVPs and All-Star selections and unthinkable records even “The Great Bambino” never produced, was a signature performance in October. A game in which he dominated on the mound, thrilled at the plate, and single-handedly transformed a game on the sport’s biggest stage.
During that Wednesday workout this week, Ohtani got himself ready for one, stepping into the cage during his on-field batting practice — as his walk-up song played through the stadium speakers and teammates gathered near the dugout in curious anticipation — and swatting one home run after another, including one that soared to the roof of the right-field pavilion.
On Friday, in an almost unimaginable showcase of his unprecedented talents, he managed to do exactly the same thing.
After stranding a leadoff walk in the top of the first with three-straight strikeouts, Ohtani switched from pitcher to hitter and unleashed a hellacious swing. Brewers starter José Quintana left him an inside slurve. Ohtani turned it into the first leadoff home run ever by a pitcher (in the regular season or playoffs). The ball traveled 446 feet. It landed high up the right-field stands.
Three more scoreless innings of pitching work later, Ohtani came back to the plate and hit his second home run of the night even farther. In a swing almost identical to his titanic BP drive two days prior, he launched a ball that darn near clipped the pavilion roof again, a 469-foot moonshot that landed in the concourse above the seats in right.
Somehow, there was still plenty more to come.
With the Dodgers up 4-0 at that point, Ohtani then did his best work as a pitcher, following up two strikeouts that stranded a leadoff double in the fourth — and had him excitedly fist-pumping off the mound — with two more in both the fifth and the sixth.
His fastball was humming up to triple-digits. His sweeper and cutter were keeping the Brewers off balance. His splitter wasn’t touched once any of the five times they tried to swing at it.
Shohei Ohtani runs the bases after hitting his third home run of the game against the Brewers in Game 4 of the NLCS at Dodger Stadium on Friday night.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
Anything he did immediately became magic.
Ohtani’s loudest roar came in the bottom of the seventh, after his pitching start had ended on a walk and a single led off the top half of the inning.
For the third time, he flung his bat at a pitch over the plate. He sent a fly ball sailing deep in a mild autumn night. He rounded the bases as landed beyond the center field fence.
Three home runs. Six immaculate innings. A tour de force that sent the Dodgers to the World Series.
All of it, just two days removed from Ohtani being seemingly at his lowest.
All of it, when the baseball world was most closely watching.
Dodgers players and coaches celebrate after sweeping the Milwaukee Brewers in the NLCS at Dodger Stadium on Friday night.
The debate over whether Mookie Betts can play shortstop was settled long ago.
The debate now is whether Mookie Betts can play shortstop better than anyone in baseball. That discussion may soon be drawing to a close, too.
Because a day after being named a finalist for a Gold Glove, Betts put a huge exclamation point on Thursday’s 3-1 playoff win over the Milwaukee Brewers with a spectacular play to start the ninth inning.
The victory leaves the Dodgers a win away from advancing to their second straight World Series, a journey they could complete Friday in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series. And a big reason they’re there is the steady defense of Betts, a six-time Gold Glove winner in the outfield who has made the difficult move to the middle of the infield seem easy.
“I think the only person on this planet that believed that Mookie Betts would be in this conversation was Mookie Betts,” Dodger manager Dave Roberts said. “It’s just something that has never been done. I can’t even — it’s incredible. Obviously I’m at a loss for words.”
Betts tried the position last year but Roberts said the confidence wasn’t there, so he moved Betts back to the outfield. There was no chance that would happen this fall.
Few understand the difficulty of what Betts has done more than those who have played the position. Yet Miguel Rojas, the man Betts replaced at shortstop — and a Gold Glove finalist himself this season as a utility player — said he’s not surprised because he has seen how hard Betts works.
“He doesn’t take days off,” Rojas said of Betts, who is frequently among the first players on the field for pregame drills and among the last to leave. “Even when we have an off day, he’ll still go out there and is asking ways to get better. I think it’s a product of being a relentless worker every single day. He’s never satisfied. He’s always trying to get better.
“For me to be there every single day to watch him perform and watch his work ethic, it’s been impressive.”
Part of that work, Betts said, involves watching video of every fielding play he makes. That includes the brilliant ones, like the ninth-inning play Thursday in which he ranged in the hole to backhand Andrew Vaughn’s grounder, then rose up and delivered a strong one-hop jump throw across his body to first baseman Freddie Freeman to get Vaughn easily.
“I go back and watch all my plays, even the routine ones, just to learn what I can do better,” he said.
Asked if he’s ever surprised by what he sees, Betts, who has yet to make an error in the playoffs, shrugged.
Dodgers shortstop Mookie Betts makes a leaping, cross-body throw to retire Andrew Vaughn at first base during the ninth inning of Game 3 of the NLCS on Thursday at Dodger Stadium.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
“I’m just doing my job. I’m just doing my job going out there and playing short, that’s all.
“Once I get to the ball, I believe and trust in my athletic ability to make a play.”
Rojas, who has played six positions in the majors, said shortstop is such a hard place to play because of the mental focus it demands. An outfielder might be able to think about his hitting for a few pitches, but the shortstop, who quarterbacks the infield, doesn’t have that luxury.
“In the middle of the year he was in a slump offensively. But he never let the defense down. And that’s really impressive,” Rojas said. “He always said it to me, ‘Even though I’m sucking right now at hitting, I’m never going to be bad at defense. And I’m going to catch every single ball.’
“That’s the mentality that you have to have to be a really good shortstop.”
In the postseason, he’s become a really good offensive shortstop as well. After slumping to a career-low .258 average in the regular season, Betts is slashing .297/.381/.459 and shares the team lead with 11 hits and five extra-base hits in the postseason.
However, the numbers and the awards mean little to him, he said; Betts cares far more about winning. And as for proving himself at shortstop? Others, including his manager, may be surprised, but he isn’t.
“I know I could do it. I believed in myself. I always have belief in myself,” he said. “It was a goal to be the best I could be. If it came with a Gold Glove, cool. If it didn’t come with a Gold Glove, cool.
“I can go to bed at night knowing that I did everything I could. That’s all I care about.”
Just a season ago there were mornings when he’d get out of that bed wishing he could go back to right field. That doesn’t happen anymore.
“I would say the best athletes are the guys in the dirt,” he said. “It was fun while it lasted. I enjoy being in the dirt now.”
PHILADELPHIA — Phillies starter Jesús Luzardo had set down 17 batters in a row going into the seventh inning of Monday’s National League Division Series game. The Dodgers hadn’t had a hit or a baserunner since the first.
And it didn’t look like they’d get another.
“Luzardo,” said Dodger first baseman Freddie Freeman, “was amazing.”
Yet it was Freeman who brought Luzardo’s masterful night to an end and pushed the Phillies’ season to the brink, keying a 4-3 Dodger win that sends the best-of-five series to Los Angeles for Game 3 on Wednesday with Philadelphia a loss away from spring training.
“It’s huge. It’s absolutely huge,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of the two-game sweep on the road. “Guys are really stepping up.”
Especially in the seventh, when the Dodgers batted around, producing the kind of inning they rarely managed in the regular season, one that featured aggressive at-bats, smart baserunning and three two-out RBIs.
“All that coming together; just really good at-bats up and down the lineup,” Roberts said.
Teoscar Hernández got it started with a single to center. Freeman followed with a hit off the end of his bat into the right-field corner, a single he turned into a double when he refused to stop at first, surprising outfielder Nick Castellanos.
“I was trying to keep things going, put pressure on them,” Freeman said. “I just wanted to push the envelope in that situation since we hadn’t had anything going on since the first inning.”
Luzardo had given up one hit through six innings; now he’d given up two in the span of five pitches.
“He retired 17 in a row. He had 72 pitches. He’s pitching great,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said.
But after Freeman’s hit he was done, with Thomson summoning reliever Orion Kerkering. The Dodgers, however, were just getting started, and an out later Hernández put them ahead to stay, breaking smartly from third on Kiké Hernández’s slow roller by the mound, then sliding to the back of the plate to beat shortstop Trea Turner’s wide throw home.
Pinch-hitter Max Muncy followed with a four-pitch walk to load the bases for Will Smith, whose two-out single on the first pitch he saw drove in two more runs.
“In that situation, it’s very easy to try to want to do too much,” Muncy said. “You have a chance to drive in a couple runs. It’s very easy to chase a pitch. But you’ve just got to be diligent with what you’re trying to do up there and just pass the baton to the next guy.”
Dodgers’ Will Smith hits a two-run single during the seventh inning of Game 2 of the NLDS on Monday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
The Dodgers’ rally had been built around a double that should have been a single, a run-scoring fielder’s choice that barely passed the mound, a walk and Smith’s one-hop single to left, the hardest-hit ball of the inning. When Shohei Ohtani grounded a single by diving second baseman Edmundo Sosa, the Dodgers led 4-0.
“Obviously some huge two-out hits by Will and then Shohei. Great play by Teo getting his foot in,” Freeman said. “A lot of good things happened in that seventh inning.”
The inning also silenced the sellout crowd of 45,653, which minutes earlier had been louder than a rock concert during a NASCAR race. When Matt Strahm, the third pitcher of the inning, finally got Mookie Betts for the third out, the fans booed the Phillies off the field.
The crowd came alive again in the ninth, when Dodgers reliever Blake Treinen once again melted down on the mound, gave up three hits and two runs without getting an out to let the Phillies back in the game. But Roki Sasaki then took them out again, retiring Turner on a groundball with the tying run on third, earning his second save in as many games.
When it was over the Phillies, who had the best home record in the majors this season, had lost consecutive games at home for the first time since June 1. And the Dodgers, unbeaten this postseason, were a win away from the NL Championship Series.
“Lots to unpack in that one,” Roberts said.
Freeman managed to put it all in perspective.
“We were just sitting at our lockers and Kiké said, ‘we just took two here’,” he said. “This is a hard place to play. Incredible fan base. It’s loud here.
“We obviously put ourselves in great position going into Wednesday.”
Blake Snell did not sound bitter. Somehow, he was not racked with regret.
Rather, when asked at his introductory Dodgers news conference this past offseason about the most infamous moment of his career, he took a brief moment to think. Then, unexpectedly, he expressed gratitude instead.
Five years ago, Snell was pitching the game of his life in Game 6 of the 2020 World Series. With his Tampa Bay Rays facing elimination against the Dodgers, he had answered the bell with five one-hit, nine-strikeout, virtually flawless Fall Classic innings.
What happened next remains controversial to this day. Snell gave up a one-out single in the sixth inning to Austin Barnes. Rays manager Kevin Cash came to the mound with a stunningly quick hook. The Dodgers went on to mount a rally against the Tampa Bay bullpen, ending a three-decade title drought while the left-handed ace watched from the bench. And in the aftermath, the second-guessing of the decision was as immediate as it was decisive.
Almost everyone else in the baseball world thought Snell should have stayed in.
Over time, however, the pitcher himself came to view it as a valuable lesson.
“It was a moment in my life that I’m very appreciative of,” Snell said last winter, donning a Dodger blue jersey for the first time after signing with the club for $182 million as a free agent.
“If I wanted to stay out there longer, I should have done a better job before that game to make that decision easier on Kevin. It’s ultimately up to me to be a better pitcher there in that moment.”
Five years later, he’s about to get his chance for postseason redemption.
Snell’s debut season in Los Angeles did not go as planned this year. He made two underwhelming starts at the beginning of the campaign while quietly battling shoulder soreness. He spent the next four months sidelined on the injured list, returning in time to make only nine more starts down the stretch.
Although his final numbers were strong (a 2.35 ERA, 72 strikeouts in 61⅓ innings, and Dodgers wins in seven of the 11 games he did pitch), his injury left his overall impact limited.
To Snell and the team, though, none of that matters now. Their union was always rooted in postseason success. And on Tuesday night, when the Dodgers open a best-of-three wild-card series against the Cincinnati Reds, it is Snell who will take the bump for Game 1 at Dodger Stadium.
“That’s why I came here,” Snell said amid the Dodgers’ division-clinching clubhouse celebration last week. “Get to the postseason, and see how good I can be.”
It’s an opportunity that’s been half a decade in the making.
Ever since breaking into the majors in 2016, and winning his first Cy Young Award with an immaculate 21-win, 1.89-ERA season two years later, Snell’s raw talent has never been in question. No starting pitcher in the history of the sport (minimum 1,000 career innings) has averaged more strikeouts per nine innings than his 11.2 mark. Even in the game’s modern era, few have possessed such a wicked arsenal, with Snell’s slider and curveball alone boasting a whopping career whiff rate of roughly 50%.
What Snell hasn’t done, however, is prove himself to be a workhorse. He has never had a 200-inning season. He has never gone six full frames in any of his 10 playoff starts. Through the years, he has been dogged by high walk rates and inefficient outings and a tendency to simply waste too many pitches. When Cash came to the mound in that sixth inning of the 2020 World Series, it only reinforced his five-and-dive reputation.
That’s why, when Snell looks back on that moment now, he views it through a lens of valuable perspective.
“I just learned, the manager’s job is to do whatever he thinks is gonna help the team win, and my job is to make him believe I’m the best option for us to win,” Snell said this past weekend, when asked about that ignominious Game 6 again. “And I didn’t do a good job of that, because he took me out.”
Thus, Snell has been on a different mission over the five years since. He not only wants to get back to the World Series and win his first championship. But he wants to do so as a bona fide October ace, the kind of anchor of a pitching staff that can get deeper into outings.
“[The playoffs are] where you want to see: What kind of player are you? How do you handle pressure situations? When everything is on the line,” Snell said. “That’s why I like it. It really allows you to understand who you are as a pitcher, where you’re at, and where you need to grow … How to find advantages to push yourself deeper in the game.”
The last time Snell pitched in the playoffs, such goals remained a work in progress. As a member of the San Diego Padres in 2022, he amassed just 13⅔ innings over three postseason starts, recording a 4.61 ERA while walking nine total batters.
Over the three seasons since then, however, he feels he has made more tangible strides. In 2023, he won another Cy Young by going 14-9 with a 2.25 ERA, averaging close to six innings per start despite a major-league-leading 99 walks. Last year might have been even more transformational, even as he battled injuries with the San Francisco Giants.
During his lone season in the Bay, Snell picked the brain of Giants ace Logan Webb, who has led the National League in innings pitched over each of the last three seasons. Their talks centered on the value of short at-bats, the importance of “dominating the inside part of the plate,” and the significance of executing competitive misses on throws around the edge of the zone.
“That was probably one of my biggest years of growth and development, in the sense of how to go deeper into games,” Snell said.
The results certainly backed that up, with Snell rebounding from an injury-plagued first half to post a 1.23 ERA over his final 14 starts. In an early August trip to Cincinnati (his last time facing the Reds ahead of this week’s playoff series), he threw his first career no-hitter on just 114 pitches.
“That no-hitter was insane,” said current Dodgers outfielder and former Giants teammate Michael Conforto, who like Snell went from San Francisco to Los Angeles as a free agent last offseason. “He just had everything working. He was hitting every corner. He knew exactly where he wanted to put it, and he put it there every time.
“That’s the kind of performance he’s capable of every time he goes out,” Conforto added. “It’s just a very, very tough at-bat. Especially when he’s throwing strikes.”
This year, Snell’s evolution has continued around the Dodgers — where manager Dave Roberts has lauded him as a “next-level thinker” for the way he can read opponents’ swings, figure out their tendencies in the batter’s box, and adapt his plan of attack to what he feels a given matchup requires.
Since returning from his early-season shoulder injury, Snell has increasingly tapped into top form. He has cut down on walks and wasted pitches. He has posted a 2.41 ERA over his nine second-half starts. His last three outings in particular: 19 innings, one run, 28 strikeouts and only five free passes.
The most important development has been his relationship with Roberts, who left Snell in the game after late-inning mound visits in each of his last two starts, and watched him escape high-leverage jams.
Those moments could be invaluable as the Dodgers enter the playoffs, giving Roberts a level of confidence to push his Game 1 starter and cover for what has been an unreliable bullpen.
“He understands his role on this ball club,” Roberts said. “When you put a starter in a position where they know they have to go deeper, you’ve got to just naturally be more efficient.”
It’s a skill Snell has been honing ever since that fateful October night five years ago. Starting Tuesday night, it’s about to be tested again.
“That’s everything,” Snell said of pitching in the postseason again. “To face the best when the stakes are highest, that’s what I’ve always wanted.”
Dodger Stadium won’t be empty Sunday, even though the next time the Dodgers play at home will be Tuesday in a National League Division Series opener.
But LA Card Show will make its Dodger Stadium debut that day with a Dodger blue-tinged format that includes a watch party of the team’s regular-season finale starting at 12:10 p.m. on DodgerVision.
Most of the time, however, attendees likely will have their heads down, studying the intricacies of trading cards and memorabilia of all stripes and types. More than 350 collectibles vendors will display, buy, sell and trade wares across sports, Pokémon, Disney and other trading card games along with comics, toys and art.
“It’s the perfect blend of card show and cultural experience, and Dodger Stadium provides the ultimate backdrop for us to lean in and create an extraordinary event,” said Chris Koenig, executive director of Dodgers 365, the program that brings outside events into Chavez Ravine.
The event begins at 10 a.m. and will include live DJ sets, food vendors, brand activations, giveaways and an autograph lounge with former Dodgers Ramón Martínez, Joe Kelly and Orel Hershiser, who owns a collectibles store in Claremont called Legends’ Attic.
The exclusive broadcast rights for the game belong to Apple TV+, as part of a package of Friday night games bought from Major League Baseball. Apple is guaranteed a minimum of four exclusive broadcasts for whatever teams it chooses to air, according to a league official. Friday’s game will be the Dodgers’ fourth on Apple TV+ this season, so it remains exclusive to Apple.
The alternate Apple game Friday involves the Toronto Blue Jays. As it became apparent the Blue Jays might clinch a playoff spot on Friday, Apple and MLB agreed that Sportsnet — the Blue Jays’ equivalent of SportsNet LA – could air a simulcast of that Apple TV+ broadcast. (That change was announced Thursday morning, before a Jays loss and Cleveland Guardians win made it impossible for Toronto to clinch on Friday.)
However, the Jays will total five exclusive Apple TV+ broadcasts this season.
Kershaw, the 11-time All-Star and three-time Cy Young award winner, said Thursday he would retire at season’s end. After the weekend series against the San Francisco Giants, in which Kershaw is scheduled to start Friday’s game, the Dodgers finish the regular season on the road. The Dodgers have not said what role, if any, Kershaw might fill on their playoff roster.
Fans can sign up for a free seven-day trial of Apple TV+ here. (If you’re signing up just to watch Kershaw, you’ll need to cancel within the seven-day window, or you’ll be billed $12.99 each month.)
The Dodgers are planning to use Shohei Ohtani as a starting pitcher in the playoffs, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman confirmed Monday.
That doesn’t mean, however, that there aren’t certain scenarios in which he could also come out of the bullpen, as well.
“Things play out in October that you can’t foresee,” Friedman said before Monday’s game against the Philadelphia Phillies — shortly after, coincidentally, catching up with new Phillies signing and ex-Dodgers favorite Walker Buehler, who made three starts in the Dodgers’ rotation last postseason before emerging for a title-clinching save in Game 5 of the Fall Classic.
“Walker Buehler was a starting pitcher for us last year, and finished out Game 5 of the World Series,” Friedman noted. “So you never know how things are going to play out.”
The possibility of Ohtani pitching in relief has been percolating for the last several weeks. Pitching coach Mark Prior said he could “absolutely” envision it during an appearance on the “Dan Patrick Show” last month. Manager Dave Roberts has more recently reiterated that the conversation regarding Ohtani’s postseason pitching role remains open as the regular season winds down.
“Could it change down the road in the postseason? Possibly,” Roberts said Sunday when pressed on the topic again. “But right now we see him as a starter.”
Friedman largely echoed that sentiment Monday, a day before Ohtani was set for his next scheduled start in a pivotal series against the Phillies (who entered this week’s visit to Dodger Stadium 4 ½ games ahead of the Dodgers for the No. 2 seed in the National League standings, and the first-round bye that comes with it).
Friedman praised Ohtani, who has returned from a second-career Tommy John surgery this year with a 3.75 ERA and 49 strikeouts over 36 innings, as “one of the best starters in the National League.”
Shohei Ohtani delivers against the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards on Sept. 5.
(Scott Taetsch / Getty Images)
He said the team’s expectation is that the right-hander “will impact us as a starting pitcher” in the playoffs — even though Ohtani might not pitch much past the fifth inning of games (the limit he has been held to in his recent regular season starts) and won’t be asked to make consecutive starts on normal four days of rest (he has gotten at least five days off between each of his outings this year).
“No one is taking on more than [he is with the] pitching and also hitting and running the bases,” Friedman said. “So just trying to be cognizant of that.”
However, pitching out of the bullpen in some specific, late-game situations could remain on the table.
Like Buehler last year, and Clayton Kershaw in many Octobers before that, a long postseason run would likely offer opportunities for the Dodgers to use Ohtani as a reliever in the days between his starts — perhaps in potential close-out games or on nights when the back end of the team’s struggling bullpen is low on other trustworthy options.
Ohtani does have memorable personal experience in such a role, having recorded the final outs of Team Japan’s victory in the 2023 World Baseball Classic.
When looking ahead to this postseason, Friedman did not close the door on that possibility either; even though he said his focus has remained on navigating the final two weeks of the regular season first.
“We’re expecting him to be a starter for us,” Friedman said, “and depending on everything else, we’ll figure out where to go from there.”
Of course, Ohtani’s two-way status would add extra complications to any potential bullpen plans.
There are logistical questions — like how he would warm up if his spot in the batting order comes up the inning before he’s supposed to take the mound.
And then there is a technical dilemma — with MLB’s two-way rules having been written in a way that, if Ohtani were to enter the game as a reliever, the Dodgers would lose him as a designated hitter once he exits the mound.
“Once you fire him … and you decide to come out of it, you have to take that cost of losing the DH and losing him as a hitter,” Roberts said. “You got to be willing to take the chance.”
That reality might restrict Ohtani to pitching only out of the bullpen in the ninth inning of games, and could make the Dodgers more hesitant to use Ohtani in relief at all for fear of what would happen if a game extended past the end of his outing.
Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani remains a key bat for the team, adding weight to any decision to use him as a reliever.
(Eric Thayer/Eric Thayer For The Los Angeles Times)
“I think they missed the mark with it,” Friedman said when asked if he was frustrated by the language of the two-way rule; which was enacted by MLB several years ago in response to Ohtani’s emergence as a two-way star, but only allows him to remain in the game as a hitter after he exits pitching starts, specifically.
“I think the rule was put in place to try to encourage people to do it, to incentivize people,” Friedman said. “So yeah, I think they missed.”
Friedman noted he’d liked to see the rule eventually changed to also include relief appearances, but acknowledged “that’s more of an offseason, future thing.”
“Obviously,” he added, “it’s not reasonable for us to ask for that in-season.”
Thus, for now, the Dodgers will continue to weigh the complex pros and cons of how to use Ohtani’s arm once they reach October.
His current weekly pitching schedule has Ohtani lined up to throw in Game 1 of a potential wild card series, which will begin exactly two weeks from his Tuesday night start against the Phillies (though Friedman insisted that wasn’t intentional).
Whether his services are needed, even in narrowly conceivable circumstances, out of the bullpen beyond that remains to be seen — with the Dodgers continuing to leave that possibility open for now.
“I think so much of it is, when does he start? What’s that time off in-between? How lined up are our other starters?” Friedman said.
“Until we know that, it’s hard to get too much into it.”
Years ago, when Don Drysdale and Sandy Koufax were at the top of the Dodgers’ pitching rotation, Drysdale missed a game to attend to some personal business. Koufax pitched a no-hitter that day.
When told about the achievement, Drysdale had one question: “Did he win?”
That’s a fair question for the current Dodgers pitching staff as well. Because Monday, for the second time in three days, the Dodgers took a no-hitter into the ninth inning.
They lost the first one. And while they won the second, it wasn’t easy with the Colorado Rockies bringing the tying run to the plate three times before Tanner Scott got the last out to preserve a 3-1 win at Dodger Stadium.
The victory kept the Dodgers a game ahead of the San Diego Padres in the National League West with 18 games left in the regular season.
It was Tyler Glasnow who flirted with history Monday, pitching seven hitless innings before turning the game over to relievers Blake Treinen and Scott. On Saturday, a similar scenario unfolded when Yoshinobu Yamamoto came within an out of a no-hitter against the Baltimore Orioles before giving up a home run to Jackson Holliday.
He left at that point, only to see Treinen and Scott give up three more runs in a 4-3 Dodger loss.
So when Scott gave up a double to Ryan Ritter to start the ninth — ending the no-hitter and drawing boos from those who remained from the crowd of 48,433 — manager Dave Roberts said he hoped he wasn’t witnessing déjà vu all over again.
“I try to not think like that,” he said.
Given how the Dodgers bullpen has struggled recently, it was hard not to.
Scott, however, quickly settled down, retiring the next two batters on soft grounders before Hunter Goodman lined out to Max Muncy at third to end the game and give Glasnow (2-3) his first win since March.
It was a victory that was long overdue.
Glasnow pitched six no-hit innings his last time out only to wind up with the loss when the Dodgers (80-64) failed to score behind him. That’s become an all-too-common problem for Glasnow, who has the second-lowest ERA in the Dodgers rotation but has received the weakest support with an average of 3½ runs per start.
Mookie Betts hits a two-run single in the seventh inning during the Dodgers’ 3-1 win over the Rockies on Monday.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
The Dodgers’ hitters didn’t even match that modest number Monday. But when Mookie Betts delivered a two-run single in the seventh, breaking a 1-1 tie, it left Glasnow in position for the win.
“It’s always good to score runs,” he said with a smile.
Smiles have been hard to come by after Glasnow’s starts. In only three of his 15 starts have the Dodgers trailed by more than a run when he has exited the game. Yet in five of those starts, the Dodgers didn’t even score a run behind him, which explains why he went more than 160 days between wins.
“It is what it is,” he shrugged. “But yeah, they put some at bats together, and we ended up winning.”
Glasnow, who was held out of his last scheduled start with a sore back, was pitching for the first time in 10 days and was strong from the start, striking out the side in the first — although he needed 18 pitches to do it. He fanned the side again in the sixth, but in between he gave up a second-inning run on Jordan Beck’s leadoff walk, a stolen base and two long outs, the second Kyle Farmer’s sacrifice fly to the left-field wall.
What he didn’t give up was a hit. Glasnow said he was aware he had a no-hitter as the game progressed, but he also knew he probably wouldn’t be allowed to finish it.
“My pitch count was pretty high,” said the right-hander, who finished with a season-high 105, striking out 11 and walking two. “I don’t know how many pitches I was going to be allowed to throw.”
Also working against him were his two stints on the injured list this season and his recent back issues.
“Obviously I want to stay in, no matter what my pitch count is,” he said. “[But] given my, like, track record, I kind of understand why. I respect the decision.”
For five innings, Colorado starter Chase Dollander, who came in 2-12 with a 6.77 ERA, nearly matched Glasnow. The Dodgers didn’t get their first baserunner until the third inning and didn’t have a hit until the fifth, when Michael Conforto led off with a single to left.
Dodgers starter Tyler Glasnow delivers in the fifth inning Monday against the Rockies.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
Dollander faced just three batters over the minimum before leaving with an apparent injury after walking Ben Rortvedt to start the sixth. Reliever Juan Mejia walked the first batter he faced and an out later Freddie Freeman bounced a high-hopper over Farmer and down the right-field line for a tying double.
An inning later the Dodgers scored two more off Angel Chivilli (1-5) to go in front. With two out and a runner on first, Shohei Ohtani doubled to right to bring Betts to the plate. After falling behind 0-2, he picked out a belt-high slider and drove it into the center to break the tie.
With the Dodgers safely in front and Glasnow out of the game, the drama turned to the no-hitter. There have been 22 combined no-hitters in major league history, with the last one by the Dodgers coming against the Padres in Monterrey, Mexico, in 2018.
That appeared in reach when Treinen breezed through the eighth. But Ritter, the Rockies’ No. 9 hitter, one-hopped the wall in left on Scott’s second pitch of the ninth. The ball appeared catchable off the bat, but Alex Call, inserted for defensive purposes, turned the wrong way, costing him any chance to make a play.
Scott retired the side on two ground outs and a liner to Muncy before celebrating with Rortvedt, who was called up from the minors Thursday and has come within four outs of catching two no-hitters in his first three starts.
“It’s not me, it’s these guys,” he said. “I’m doing my homework as much as I can, trying to be prepared. The pitchers are prepared. It’s just the fruit of that labor at that point.
Issues accessing tickets from the MLB app caused problems at the entry gates for fans trying to enter Dodger Stadium before Monday’s game between the Dodgers and Colorado Rockies.
It’s unclear how many fans were affected, but the problem wasn’t confined to fans entering Dodger Stadium — the issue has been ongoing since at least last weekend at MLB ballparks across the country.
“MLB’s ticketing system TDC is experiencing difficulties across multiple venues for retrieving tickets and fan entry,” the Dodgers said in a statement. “The league is working with the Dodgers and other franchises to address the issues.”
The Dodgers notified season ticket holders Monday about the situation, urging them to reset their passwords on the MLB website. They instructed them to contact the team’s member services department if they were unable to access their tickets or couldn’t reset their passwords.
An MLB representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell. Here’s a bonus edition of the newsletter as we continue to look at the top 10 Dodgers at each position.
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Top 10 right fielders
Here are my picks for the top 10 right fielders in Dodgers history, followed by how all of you voted. Numbers listed are with the Dodgers only. Click on the player’s name to be taken to the baseball-reference.com page with all their stats.
1. Carl Furillo (1946-60, .299/.355/.458, 112 OPS+, two-time All-Star)
“The Reading Rifle” led the NL in batting average at .344 in 1953, the second of his two All-Star seasons with the Dodgers. He finished sixth in MVP voting in 1949 when he hit .322 with 27 doubles, 10 triples, 18 homers and 106 RBIs. He was a good fielder with a great arm, racking up 24 assists in 1951, more than earning his nickname.
Nobody knew how to play the right-field wall at Ebbets Field like Furillo. The wall was 19 feet high, with a 19-foot screen on top. The screen was vertical, the wall was slightly angled, so balls would ricochet off in strange directions.
Furillo described how he played the wall. “Will it hit above the cement and hit the screen? Then you run like hell toward the wall, because it’s gonna drop dead. Will it hit the cement? Then you gotta run like hell to the infield, because it’s gonna come shooting out. The angles were crazy.”
He was a steady player for the Dodgers for years and played in seven World Series with the team, including the 1955 and 1959 title teams. Years later, in the book “Bums” by Peter Golenbock, Furillo talked about what it meant to win that 1955 World Series: “Oh God, that was the thrill of all thrills. I never in my life seen a town go so wild. You did it for yourself, too, but you did it for the people.” The Dodgers released Furillo during the 1960 season and he moved back east. He helped install the elevators in the World Trade Center buildings. On Jan. 21, 1989, he died of heart failure at the age of 75.
You could make an argument for Betts to be No. 1. I went with the longer Dodger career. Moving him to shortstop remains a mistake for now. Maybe at some point it pays off, but not yet.
3. Babe Herman (1926-31, 1945, .339/.396/.557, 144 OPS+)
Babe Herman was a great hitter and a lousy fielder who will always be remembered for doubling into a double play. On Aug. 15, 1926, the Dodgers were playing the Boston Braves. With one out and the bases loaded, Herman launched a flyball to right that looked like it would be caught, but it hit the wall. The runner on third scored, but the runner on second, Dazzy Vance, rounded third and stopped, unsure if the ball had been caught. The runner on first, Chick Fewster, saw Vance round third and assumed he was going to score, so Fewster rounded second and continued to third, where he met the confused Vance. Meanwhile Herman, head down all the way, came sliding into third with what he thought was a triple. The base belonged to Vance, so Fewster and Herman were tagged out, inning over. What often gets overlooked, the run Herman did knock in turned out to be the winning run in the game. It also led to a story, possibly apocryphal, of a Brooklyn man hailing a cab. The driver has the Dodgers game on the radio and the passenger asks “What’s going on with the Dodgers?” the driver answers “they have three men on” and the passenger responds, “Oh yeah? Which base?”
Also, Herman played so well that season that the Dodgers released aging future Hall of Famer Zack Wheat, convinced Herman could replace him.
Herman’s best season came in 1930, when he hit .393 with 48 doubles, 11 triples, 35 homers and 130 RBIs. Tempering those numbers a bit is the fact the entire league hit .303 in 1930 and despite those lofty numbers, Herman amazingly didn’t lead the league in anything. Herman led the team in homers in RBIs in 1931 and hit for the cycle twice. He got into a salary dispute after the season and the Dodgers traded him to Cincinnati. He left the majors after the 1937 season but in 1945, with the Dodgers in a pennant race and players scarce because of the war, general manager Branch Rickey asked Herman, who had been playing in the Pacific Coast League, if he would like to return to the Dodgers. Herman, 42, said sure and hit .265 with a double, homer and nine RBIs in 34 at-bats. He retired for good and became a long-time scout for various teams. Babe Herman died in Glendale on Nov. 27, 1987 at age 84.
4. Reggie Smith (1976-81, .297/.387/.528, 152 OPS+, three-time All-Star)
Reggie Jackson got the headlines, but the best Reggie in right field from 1977-78 was Reggie Smith. Which seems appropriate, because Steve Garvey got the headlines on the Dodgers even though Smith was a better player those two years, finishing fourth in MVP voting both seasons and leading the league in OB% in 1977 with an amazing .427 mark. That season, he hit .307 with 32 homers and 87 RBIs and scored 104 runs. And you didn’t mess with Smith or one of his teammates while he was with the Dodgers. In 1981, the Dodgers were playing the Pittsburgh Pirates when their pitcher, Pascaul Perez, hit Bill Russell with a pitch. The Dodgers demanded that Perez, who had a reputation of throwing at batters, be warned. The umpires refused. A couple of batters later, Perez hit Dusty Baker. Smith leveled a series of threats and profanities at Perez. After the inning, Perez motioned to Smith that he would meet him under the stands. The two players raced up their respective dugout tunnels and met behind home plate, under the stands. On TV, all we saw was both dugouts emptied as players from both teams also raced up the tunnels. It looked as if everyone had vanished. Amazingly, no one was ejected, and Perez even pitched the next inning. The Dodgers won the game. Smith left the majors after the 1982 season and played two years in Japan. He worked for the Dodgers as a coach, was the hitting coach for the 2000 gold-medal winning U.S. baseball team and is probably best known for his youth baseball camp and the Reggie Smith Baseball Center in Encino.
Walker played for 18 seasons in the majors but had his greatest success with Brooklyn, leading the league in hitting in 1944 (.357) and in RBIs in 1945 (124). Nicknamed “The People’s Choice,” he was extremely popular among Brooklyn fans, but now is mostly remembered for trying to keep Jackie Robinson from joining the team. He was among a group of Dodgers in spring training of 1947 who petitioned the team not to put Robinson on the team and, when they did, Walker asked Rickey for a trade. Walker and Robinson did their best to avoid each other during the season, and after the season, Walker credited Robinson for much of the team’s success. Robinson also credited Walker for giving him a batting tip early in the season. Years later, in an interview with Roger Kahn, Walker said “I organized that petition in 1947, not because I had anything against Robinson personally. … I had a wholesale business in Birmingham and people told me I’d lose my business if I played ball with a Black man.” Walker apologized and added “A person learns, and you begin to change with the times.” After the 1947 season, the Dodgers traded Walker to Pittsburgh for Billy Cox, Gene Mauch and Preacher Roe. Walker was a batting coach for the Dodgers from 1968 to 1974 and died of colon cancer in 1982 at age 71.
6. Shawn Green (2000-04, .280/.366/.510, 130 OPS+, one-time All-Star)
Green played in only five seasons with the team, but one of those years included perhaps the greatest offensive game by a Dodger. On May 23, 2002 in Milwaukee, Green hit four home runs, a double and a single, drove in seven runs and scored six runs. Green became a hero to many in the Jewish community the season before, when he ended his consecutive games played streak at 415 games in order to observe Yom Kippur. “I felt like it was the right thing to do. … I didn’t do this to gain approval. I thought it was the right example to set for Jewish kids, a lot of whom don’t like to go to synagogue,” Green said. Green was also known for giving away his batting gloves to a kid in the stands after every home run. He talked about how Vin Scully was the impetus for that when Green took part on our “Ask…” series. You can read that here. The Dodgers traded Green to Arizona before the 2005 season for Dioner Navarro and three minor leaguers. He played three more seasons in the majors and retired at age 34.
7. Andre Ethier (2006-17, .285/.359/.463, 122 OPS+, two-time All-Star, one Gold Glove)
On Dec. 13, 2005, the Dodgers made one of their best trades ever when they sent Milton Bradley and Antonio Perez to Oakland for Ethier, who became their starting right fielder for the next 10 seasons and put himself on many all-time top 10 lists in L.A. Dodger history. You knew what you were going to get from Ethier every season: A .280-.290 average with about 20 homers and 80 RBIs. He was the first Dodger to have at least 30 doubles in seven consecutive seasons. It was 2009 when Ethier became a fan favorite. He had six walk-off hits that season, four of them home runs. He played in a then-franchise record 51 postseason games and drove in the Dodgers’ only run in Game 7 of the 2017 World Series. It was his final appearance as a Dodger, as he retired before the 2018 season after two injury-marred seasons.
8. Raúl Mondesi (1993-99, .288/.334/.504, 122 OPS+, one-time All-Star, two Gold Gloves, 1994 NL rookie of the year)
Mondesi is sort of the original Yasiel Puig. He was an exciting player to watch who played Gold Glove-level defense in right, but also made a lot of baserunning mistakes and wasn’t always popular with his teammates. He was named NL rookie of the year in 1994 after hitting .306 with 16 home runs and 56 RBIs and in 1997 became the first Dodger to join the 30-30 club when he hit 30 homers and stole 32 bases. He was traded to Toronto after the 1999 season along with Pedro Borbon for Shawn Green and bounced around the majors after that, with his career ending in 2005. He was elected mayor of his hometown, San Cristobal, Dominican Republic, in 2010 and in 2017 was sentenced to eight years in prison for corruption and mishandling of public funds while mayor. His son played seven seasons with the Kansas City Royals.
Crawford is one of those guys who was good at a lot of things but not great at anything, and those types of players tend to be overlooked. But you need players like that every year in order to win. Crawford first played for L.A. as a 17-year-old in 1964 and had his best season in 1973, when he hit .295/.396/.453 with 14 homers and 66 RBIs. He was solid defensively, playing more shallow than most right fielders to cut down on bloop singles and relying on his speed to catch any balls hit over him. “He was big and powerful, and he could hit a ball as far as anybody. Boy, was he something,” Tommy Lasorda once said of Crawford, who the Dodgers signed out of Fremont High. Crawford was signed out of high school for $100,000, and the rules at the time said if you signed for at least that much, you had to stay on the major league roster for a season, which hampered his development. In 1965, the 19-year-old Crawford got a World Series ring for being on the Dodgers roster, but he batted only 27 times in the regular season. In his first four seasons as a Dodger, he played in 72 games. He was a productive player for many years and retired after the 1977 season. Crawford died of kidney disease at age 57 in 2004. You can read more about him here.
How long ago did Keeler play? He retired 115 years ago. He died 102 years ago. He was one of the biggest stars of 19th-century baseball, known for his hitting philosophy of “I hit ‘em where they ain’t,” referring to fielders. He holds the Dodger record for career batting average, a record that seems unlikely to be broken. He was starring with Baltimore when, in essence, the two teams fell under the same ownership group and decided to put all the best players, including Keeler, on Brooklyn. Keeler was born in Brooklyn, so he was elated, as it also allowed him to live with his mother, who was very ill. Brooklyn was the best team in the National League in 1899 and 1900, but there was no World Series, so that’s about as far as it went. He signed with the New York Highlanders (who eventually became the Yankees) in 1903 for $11,000, becoming the first player to be paid at least $10,000.
He retired after the 1910 season. He was well off financially, but a series of bad investments led to him becoming virtually penniless. He was so popular, players in both leagues donated money, and he was presented with a check for $5,000 in 1921. He died of endocarditis (inflammation of the lining of the heart) in 1923.
He was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1939.
The readers’ top 10
1,317 ballots were sent in. First place received 12 points, second place nine, all the way down to one point for 10th place. For those of you who were wondering, I make my choices before I tally your results. Here are your choices:
The next five: Willie Keeler, Frank Robinson, Yasiel Puig, Hack Wilson, Mike Marshall.
Top 10 starting pitchers
Who are your top 10 Dodgers right fielders of all time (including Brooklyn)? Email your list to [email protected] and let me know. Remember, we are considering only what they did with the Dodgers.
Many of you have asked for a list of players to consider for each position. Here are the strongest starting pitcher candidates, in alphabetical order.
Tim Belcher, Chad Billingsley, Ralph Branca, Kevin Brown, Bob Caruthers, Watty Clark, Al Downing, Don Drysdale, Carl Erskine, Zack Greinke, Burleigh Grimes, Orel Hershiser, Burt Hooton, Tommy John, Brickyard Kennedy, Clayton Kershaw, Sandy Koufax, Tim Leary, Ramón Martínez, Rube Marquard, Andy Messersmith, Van Lingle Mungo, Don Newcombe, Hideo Nomo, Claude Osteen, Chan Ho Park, Jeff Pfeffer, Johnny Podres, Doug Rau, Jerry Reuss, Preacher Roe, Nap Rucker, Bill Singer, Sherry Smith, Ed Stein, Don Sutton, Adonis Terry, Fernando Valenzuela, Dazzy Vance, Bob Welch, Whit Wyatt.
Have a comment or something you’d like to see in a future Dodgers newsletter? Email me at [email protected]. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
V from BTS got to be the devoted fanboy for once Monday night at Dodger Stadium, where he was lucky enough to share an embrace with Shohei Ohtani and give a deep bow on the field to Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
The K-pop heartthrob posed for photos in the dugout with three-time MVP Ohtani, who returned to the mound this season in addition to continuing as the Dodgers’ designated hitter, and more pics on the field with pitching ace Yamamoto, who helped the team beat the Padres in San Diego on Sunday. Dude even spent a few minutes chatting up the legendary Clayton Kershaw.
Seems V — real name Kim Taehyung — might be a fan of pitching in general?
That’s a good thing, if true, because the K-pop star was at Chavez Ravine to deliver the ceremonial first pitch before the Dodgers shut out the Cincinnati Reds 7-0. BTS fans were definitely there in the crowd to support him.
The seven members of BTS — Jin, Suga, J-Hope, RM, Jimin, Jung Kook and V — surfaced on social media in July after a long hiatus to announce that a new album would be coming in spring 2026, now that they all completed their mandatory 18-month South Korean military service.
Announcer Todd Leitz referenced the band’s “highly anticipated” reunion over the stadium PA system Monday. “NO more waiting now, V. The mound is yours!” he said.
Taking the mound, V delivered a strike to Yamamoto, who was crouched down as the honorary catcher. The pop star earned a “wow, what a pitch” from Leitz and screams from the fans in the stands.
“He’s been on the field for 30 minutes. We finally hit the crescendo with the first pitch tonight for V from BTS,” a voice is heard saying in a video chronicling the moment.
“Yeah, and he dotted up a strike, man,” another voice adds. “Good for him. He’s been out here practicing every 13 seconds. We got the crowd going nuts, we don’t know why. He’s over there playing catch, throwing halfway down the left field line. And you put the guy on the mound, turns into a pretty good strike thrower.”
After the pitch, V also got to speak the five legendary words that open every home game for the boys in blue: “It’s time for Dodger baseball.”
“Starting in July, all seven of us will begin working closely together on new music,” the band said in a statement July 1. “Since it will be a group album, it will reflect each member’s thoughts and ideas. We’re approaching the album with the same mindset we had when we first started.”
BTS last released an album, “Proof,” in June 2022 and performed live together later that year in their home country. Each member has released solo material since then, including Jung Kook’s song “Seven,” which topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 2023, and RM’s “Right Place, Wrong Person,” which reached No. 5 on Billboard’s album chart last year.
Times pop music critic Mikael Wood contributed to this report.
