Thanks so much for running the article on Eric Sondheimer. As a longtime SoCal resident who moved to Dallas two years ago, I still subscribe to The Times online to follow the Rams, Lakers, Angels and Dodgers. But I also follow high school sports and am glad to see Eric get the recognition he deserves for covering high school sports for 50 years. Congrats, Eric!
Bob Ring Dallas
The Times sports section once again hit the jackpot with Bill Plaschke’s column on Eric Sondheimer coupled with Sondheimer’s own column on his 50 top memories of his 50 years of reporting high school sports. To me, an important part about sports is the memories that continue for so long after the events, and these two columns by two terrific writers truly brought that home.
Bill Francis Pasadena
I have had the privilege over the years of having met and talked with Mr. Sondheimer at various games. He is an encyclopedia of knowledge on high school sports, and his ideas about keeping this level of competition moving in the right direction is unmatched. Why he does not have the role of commissioner is something I have often thought about over the years, but then I would miss reading his columns.
Mark Kaiserman Santa Monica
Thank you, Eric, for being here, there and everywhere over the last 50 years. Your stories are a great reminder of what sports teaches high school students about life.
Jeff Perkins Huntington Beach
Congratulations to Eric Sondheimer on his 50 years of dedication and professionalism covering high school sports. Bill Plaschke did an excellent job paying tribute to Eric for all that he has done in telling stories that captured our interest for these many years. Eric has never shied away from expressing his opinions on the state of high school sports and how they can be improved. I always respected him for doing so. Well done, Eric!
Rob Wigod Seal Beach
About half of Sondheimer’s career ago, I reached out to Eric as a first-year middle school basketball coach with “a story you might want to tell.” It was about a legally blind player who made our team, legitimately earning his spot over some sighted players and also scoring in a game. Eric came to our gym, interviewed players about what an incredible teammate he was and wrote a fantastic story. Twenty-six years later, I’m still coaching, and that remains one of the great memories of my career. The term GOAT gets thrown around too easily these days. Not here. He’s undisputed.
Jason Heyward didn’t give Freddie Freeman the heads up that he’d secured a job in the Dodgers’ front office. He hadn’t told any of his former Dodger teammates. But Freeman, who’s known Heyward for two decades, now says he’d heard rumblings. He was just going to let his longtime friend break the news himself.
On May 13, midway through a home series against the Giants, Freeman walked into the food room at Dodger Stadium, and, to his surprise and confusion, there was Heyward.
“What are you doing here?” a slack-jawed Freeman asked.
“Well, I’m working,” Heyward said.
No text. No call.
“He waited to tell me in person,” Freeman said.
Heyward technically started his job as a special assistant at the beginning of May, but he was on site for the first time a couple of weeks later. That game against the Giants, with Heyward looking on as a Dodgers special assistant for the first time, Freeman stole a base — a rarity in recent years.
“I wanted to ask him, what was my grade?” Freeman said. “What do you give me, a 70 on the 20-80 (scouting) scale?”
Freeman chuckled. Though he has long been an adept baserunner, it’s never been because of his speed — not even in high school, when teams were scouting him for the 2007 MLB draft.
Jason Heyward, who joined the Dodgers as a special assistant earlier this season, stands on the field before a game against the Seattle Mariners at Dodger Stadium last month.
(Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Getty Images)
That’s when Freeman and Heyward first met, the summer before their senior year. They had no way of knowing that they’d go on to experience baseball and life milestones together for the next two decades and counting.
They were both drafted by the Braves, Heyward in the first round (No. 14 overall), and Freeman in the second (No.78). They became roommates and teammates, debuting in the same year.
Over the course of two long and decorated MLB careers — which includes Heyward’s five Gold Gloves, Freeman’s 10 All-Star selections, and five World Series rings between the two of them — their paths diverged and reconnected multiple times.
In this most recent chapter, Heyward has ventured into the front office, Freeman is adding to his Hall of Fame candidacy, and they’re once again on the same team.
“To see us now, it’s crazy,” Freeman said. “It really is.”
Strangers
It’s rare for friends of 20 years to be able to pick out the details of their first encounter. Over the decades, fond memories start to jumble and fade.
But not for Freeman and Heyward.
Without hesitation they’ll bring up August 2006, when they were both 16 and played on opposing teams in the Aflac All-American Classic, held that year in San Diego. They really got to know each other during the down time that week, hanging out in the communal game room in the hotel.
When they met, Freeman was playing Pop-A-Shot.
“That’s where he was most of the time,” Heyward said.
The group could gravitate to another part of the room to “trade cards, sign autographs, talk a little shop,” and Freeman would somehow end up back at the Pop-A-Shot.
That, however, didn’t stop Freeman and Heyward from hitting it off.
On the surface, they were an opposites-attract kind of duo, in pretty much every category but height — listed as 6-foot-4 and 6-5 during that showcase. Heyward grew up in the Atlanta metropolitan area, playing on the East team, and Freeman was an Orange County native, representing the West.
Their priorities and aspirations pulled them together.
“You kind of look around and see all the other guys there and see what they’re doing, how they talk, how they act,” Freeman said. “And then you run into Jason, and then, I’m like, ‘That’s who I want to hang out with.’ He had everything figured out at such a young age.”
Heyward was the more hyped prospect, and the star of the East in that game, with four stolen bases, a pair of hits and two RBIs.
The second time Heyward reached first base, Freeman said to him, “You’re not going to steal again.” Heyward’s response: “I’m going again.”
“I looked down, he was kicking dirt on my shoes, all that,” Heyward said. “So, same guy who he is today on first base, that’s who he’s always been.”
Even in practice, Freeman’s competitiveness stood out to his new friend.
“One hundred percent competitive, but it was fun for him to be competitive,” Heyward said. “Not competitive in like, ‘Get off me,’ [stuff] like that. He welcomed me.”
Though they became fast friends, and ran into each other on the showcase circuit throughout their senior year, who knows what would have happened if the 2007 draft had played out differently?
Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman takes his shoes off after batting practice during spring training at Camelback Ranch in Phoenix in February.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
Draftees
Freeman was scheduled to take a final exam the day he was drafted.
That year, the draft made its television debut. The first round — including the Braves selecting hometown kid Jason Heyward — was broadcast on ESPN2. Heyward’s selection wasn’t a surprise — “We know the Braves have a history of drafting young players from the area,” he said.
But Freeman would have to be in front of a computer to track the subsequent rounds. He finagled permission to go home until he was selected, and then return to school.
“We were going along, and I had some other teams calling for me as a pitcher,” Freeman said. “And I was like, ‘I don’t want to pitch, let me hit first.’”
Eventually the Braves called, with their second pick of the second round approaching. Freeman, wasting no time, kicked off the conversation with: “I don’t want to pitch.”
“And they’re like, ‘Good, because we don’t want you to,’” Freeman recalled.
Finally. The excitement began to set in.
Even after the Braves drafted Freeman, it wasn’t a done deal on his end.
He’d committed to Cal State Fullerton, the alma mater of his father, Fred Freeman. And Freddie had his sights set on becoming a CPA and taking over his dad’s business.
A couple days after the draft, at 2 or 3 a.m., Freddie knocked on Fred’s bedroom door with a decision.
“Dad, I don’t want to go to college,” he said. “I want to play baseball.”
They talked for a while. And though Fred had wanted his son to pursue an education, he softened his stance, supporting Freddie’s dream. They agreed, Freddie remembers, that if he didn’t make it to the big leagues in four years, he’d quit to follow the original plan.
“Back then, I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s fine,” Freeman said. “And now you think about it — that was crazy to think, right? Four or five years in the minor leagues, that’s what the norm is. … We didn’t know any better.”
That set Freeman and Heyward on course to reunite, this time as teammates.
Heyward, poised to sign for above slot value, had to wait until mid-August to sign his contract ($1.7-million bonus). So, when he finally joined the Gulf Coast League, for all of eight games before finishing the season with rookie-ball Danville, he remembers Freeman greeting him with a disgruntled, “Hey, man, I’ve been waiting on you. I’ve been here, it’s been hot.”
“My bad,” Heyward said. “I couldn’t control it.”
Freeman broke into laughter.
After the instructional league that fall, Freeman and Heyward decided to room together in spring training. And though the accommodations changed throughout the years, they’d remain roommates through 2010, their debut season in the majors.
Roommates
Outfielder Jason Heyward, left, and infielder Freddie Freeman celebrate before the start of a spring training game against the Toronto Blue Jays in March 2010.
(Al Messerschmidt / Getty Images)
There’s no better way to quickly learn a person’s idiosyncrasies than living with them.
In terms of morning routines, Heyward and Freeman were on far ends of the spectrum. If Heyward was going to start getting ready at 12:30, Freeman was waiting until 12:48 — and it was always something that specific too. Extremely structured to this day, if something throws off Freeman’s schedule, his “robot mind,” as he puts it, malfunctions.
While Heyward would marvel at how close Freeman was willing to cut it, Freeman would give Heyward grief for how long he’d take to get ready.
“In the minor leagues, we had to shave, had to keep it low,” Heyward said. “And I’ve been, at that time, shaving since I was 15. So sometimes I had to shave twice a day, otherwise it was just freaking uncomfortable.
“So, yeah, if I may take a long time to get ready, ‘You’re rocking with what you’re rocking with; you can just get out of bed, literally wet your hair, and then go.’”
On the road, Freeman still jokes, Heyward’s BlackBerry phone came into play. The team would put the players up in hotel rooms with two beds, subjecting Freeman to the incessant clicking of Heyward texting.
“Anybody can nitpick something, but if I complain about a BlackBerry texting, that’s not really anything,” Freeman said. “‘Sorry, I had friends,’ he would say.”
Freeman and Heyward were inseparable. They’d hit back-to-back in the lineup, and then get on the bus for a 13-hour ride and sit right next to each other.
They rose quickly through the farm system, one after another, sharing the highs and lows.
“There was some irony in the fact of how he was treated in the South, versus how I’m treated in the South, even though I’m from there,” said Heyward, who is Black. “And that goes back to even in the minor leagues.”
A road trip to Savannah, Ga., in 2008 immediately came to mind for Freeman, who is white. From first base Freeman could hear everything the crowd said to Heyward in right field — including the racial slur a fan yelled in the middle of a game.
“It was the first time I ever heard the N-word,” Freeman said. “It was crazy to me. And I was almost in tears. I wanted to run into the stands.”
In fact, he started walking over there, before Heyward stopped him.
“For me, obviously, that’s been my whole life, especially growing up where I grew up,” Heyward said. “But it’s just a good perspective on him not hearing it before. And I think that’s it.
“But, yeah, if anybody would have tried him on anything, I’m fighting them too. … What’s understood didn’t have to be explained there.”
The fact that Heyward could remain so calm was eye-opening for Freeman. The pair came away from that incident, and more subtle slights (like having to wait 20 minutes to be seated in a mostly empty restaurant), with a better understanding of each other.
“For an 18-year-old to have that be a normal thing is even more saddening,” Freeman said. “To this day, it’s hard to even talk about. That those kids, or young adults [in the stands] grew up thinking that was an OK thing to say, it’s just baffling to me.”
Teammates
Heyward’s highly anticipated MLB debut came on April 5, 2010, opening day at Turner Field. And in his first major league at-bat, he smoked a three-run home run to right field.
Freeman, on the other hand, started the season in triple A. But that didn’t split up the roommates. Freeman made the 35-minute drive northeast to Gwinnett, and Heyward headed south for 15 minutes.
By late August, it was obvious Freeman would be among the Braves’ call-ups when rosters expanded on Sept. 1.
Sure enough, Heyward and Freeman both headed south that day — still driving separately because of their differing morning routines.
Freddie Freeman, left, Jason Heyward, center, and Brian McCann chat during a workout at spring training in Kissimmee, Fla., in 2011.
(Phelan M. Ebenhack / Associated Press)
“I walked into Turner Field, and saw my name in the lineup, hitting sixth, and I almost threw up,” Freeman said.
Seeing familiar faces helped. Freeman knew many of the coaches and his new teammates from major league spring training the past two years. And, of course, there was Heyward.
“Just a special day,” Freeman said. “I didn’t get any hits, but I didn’t care.
“Jason got all the hits for us, he went four for four. He was so happy I was there. He took all my hits.”
As Freeman went through his big-league firsts, he appreciated having Heyward, who’d already checked them off for himself, by his side.
Freeman looks back fondly on their plane rides. He and Heyward would sit together, eating Chick-fil-A.
Raising the level of decadence, the next year, Freeman had his first “show dinner” with Heyward and veterans such as Eric Hinske and Chipper Jones at a steakhouse in Seattle called El Gaucho.
“I was like, this is the coolest thing ever,” Freeman said.
“Those were both of our ‘college years,’” Heyward said. “So seeing the real world a little bit, spending time on flights, clubhouse, dinners, enjoying teammates, becoming young adults.”
Jason Heyward, right, high-fives teammate Freddie Freeman after scoring off a single by Justin Upton in the first inning of a June 2013 game against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
(David Goldman / Associated Press)
They were also playing well. Heyward and Freeman finished No. 2 in NL rookie of the year voting in consecutive years. And they started filling up their own individual trophy cases, while the Braves made it to the postseason three times in five years.
“Everyone has fun playing baseball,” Freeman said, “but to experience the big leagues with your best friend, I don’t know if you can get much better than that.”
Rivals
As soon as the Braves were eliminated from the 2014 postseason chase, the team fired general manager Frank Wren. Plunging into a rebuild, new president of baseball operations John Hart’s first big move was to trade Heyward to the Cardinals for pitching.
“That was the first time I saw the business side of baseball,” Freeman said. “Sad day. But it opened my eyes to, this isn’t just fun all the time. The fun has to end at some point.”
Freeman and Heyward kept in touch and celebrated each other’s successes. But it wasn’t the same.
“That was like, ‘Alright, this is becoming more of a job,” Heyward said.
Heyward leveraged that platform season in St. Louis into an eight-year free agent contract with the Cubs worth $184 million, setting a franchise record.
The Braves extended Freeman. Then when he finally hit free agency after the 2021 season, he became the first infielder to sign a $100-plus million deal with the Dodgers, signing a contract for six years and $162 million.
For eight years, Heyward and Freeman played for opposing NL teams. Then, an unexpected turn of events set the ball rolling for a reunion.
In early August 2022, when Heyward had already been on the injured list for over a month with what the Cubs called right knee inflammation, president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer announced that the team intended to release the veteran right fielder from the final year of his contract after the season.
Freeman saw an opportunity. And for the rest of the year, he didn’t let Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman or general manager Brandon Gomes walk by without hearing his pitch for Heyward.
“I’ll shoot you straight,” Freeman told them. “I don’t know what you’re going to get from the baseball player Jason Heyward, but I know what you’re going to get from the person Jason Heyward, and what he would mean inside of a clubhouse, and what he can do to young guys and help them. There’s no one better to be in this clubhouse than how you are envisioning clubhouse culture and chemistry than to bring this guy in.”
Friedman doesn’t have an exact count on the number of times Freeman mentioned Heyward to him in those months, “but it was definitely a lot.”
Friedman and Gomes were intrigued enough to have their group dig into the evolution of Heyward’s swing. But they still had questions, like how open was he going to be to diving into adjustments with their staff?
Soon after he was officially released, the Dodgers set up a Zoom.
“He was all-in,” Friedman said, “in terms of open-mindedness, desire to change some of the recent narrative, and he was excited about the prospect of working with our guys and doing what he could to help us win games, both on and off the field.”
Heyward said he heard from the Dodgers three times before he heard from any other team in free agency.
“That was how persistent they were,” he said.
Jason Heyward, left, celebrates a run with Freddie Freeman against the Texas Rangers in June 2024.
(Ronald Martinez / Getty Images)
Heyward signed a minor-league deal with the Dodgers in early December. He spent time in Southern California over the offseason to get a head start on overhauling his swing. And he met Freeman in Newport Beach, to hang out, hit and work out together.
Heyward’s efforts paid off. He made the team out of spring training. And he and Freeman were officially teammates again.
“It was so fun,” Heyward said.
Their reunion on the field was brief — the Dodgers re-signed Heyward for the 2024 season and then, his first half derailed by injuries, released him in August — but it was still sweet.
“You go from sitting together on a bus coming from Rome, Ga., going to Wilmington, Delaware — and like now you’re on a first class flight with the L.A. Dodgers, and traveling from West Coast to East Coast, wearing the jumpsuits, all that stuff,” Heyward said. “That was a very cool experience coming from being 16-years-old, Aflac All-Americans, to now sharing a World Series ring.”
Co-workers
Heyward finished 2024 with the Astros and spent the next season with the Padres. He trained this past offseason to be ready for spring training if a team gave him an offer. But in the final weeks, he also started laying groundwork for a post-playing career in case the phone never rang.
“This year I said, ‘If we get a Super Bowl weekend, that’s it, and I’m content,’” Heyward said. “Not complacent; I’m content. I let it run its course, and now I have clarity to go do whatever else it is.”
He said he reached out to the Cubs first about a non-playing role, and had cursory conversations with the White Sox. He exchanged texts with Friedman, reviving conversations they’d had in his stint with the Dodgers. In many ways, it came down to timing.
Heyward had already been planning on meeting up in spring training with Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, a former player, to pick his brain about the transition.
They went to dinner, with both their wives, and stayed for six hours.
“I basically was just honest with him, in telling him that, No. 1, I think it’s great that he wants to stay in the game,” Roberts said. “But No. 2 is that when you’re a player, you look at certain things in a certain lens, but for him to be good at this job in the front office, he’s got to be really open-minded to learn.”
Roberts came away from the conversation excited by how earnestly Heyward embraced that message. And he mentioned to Gomes: “Someone with his character that has his desire to work could be a huge asset for us.”
Two and a half weeks later, Heyward stopped by Dodgers camp at Camelback Ranch to catch up with old friends and teammates.
“I was here for two years, and it felt like I was here for 10,” Heyward said. “And that’s family included — my family, my kids, my wife … So, what I thought was going to be natural, this was even more organic.”
Friends
Dodgers outfielder Jason Heyward, right, congratulates Freddie Freeman after bringing him home on an eighth-inning sacrifice fly against the Colorado Rockies at Dodger Stadium in a June 2024 game.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Life changes dramatically between the ages of 16 and 36.
“Single guys trying to make it, to married with many kids,” said Freeman, who turns 37 next month. “And we’re still as close as ever, which is really, really special for me.”
Then, he added: “This is going to be friends forever.”
Their wives, Chelsea Freeman and Vedrana Heyward, are close too. The Freeman’s middle children are just a little over a year older than the Heywards’ eldest. And the families’ newest additions were both born months apart.
Freeman and Heyward are already coordinating family schedules and travel — the Heywards are based in Chicago — to all get together in California this offseason.
They’re no longer those high schoolers bonding between rounds of Pop-A-Shot. In June, Freeman surpassed 2,500 career MLB hits.
“The way Free’s done it, winning is all over it,” Heyward said. “I think that’s one of those unique abilities, to this guy is playing the game first, winning first, and then he’s getting a result, then he’s having the big at-bat, doing it obviously in the postseason. So I’m just happy to see him get the recognition that he’s earned the time he put into it. I’m happy to see his stubbornness pay off.
“It’s not easy to do. It’s much easier said than done.”
Heyward, moving on from a 16-year major-league playing career, would love to be a general manager one day. But he’s keeping an open mind. He took Roberts’ advice to heart and is using his first year as a special assistant to learn and explore the possibilities.
Heyward has been around the major-league team for a handful of series in Los Angeles and Chicago (even giving Freeman advance notice before the White Sox series to make up for his May drop-in).
Trying his hand at player evaluation, he sat in the stands during the Southeastern Conference tournament. And as he pops in on affiliates, the Dodgers also see the time he spends with their outfield prospects — the biggest strength of their farm system — as invaluable.
“Whatever he wants to be in the front office, he’s going to be it, because that’s just who he is,” Freeman said. “Because he is a special man, he works hard, he cares, he wants to be the best.”
Freeman has already seen Heyward manifest his dreams once — and vice versa.
Being drafted, making it to the majors, winning championships, those were just dreams 20 years ago this month, when they both wandered into the communal activities room between All-American Classic obligations.
“That week in San Diego,” Freeman said, “obviously we’ll never forget it.”
Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman tracked Royals hitter Isaac Collins’ fly ball through foul territory to just outside the visiting dugout at Dodger Stadium.
He had a plan. With one out in the top of the eighth inning, Freeman was going to lean over the rail to make the catch.
He shuffled, shifted his weight, and the ground disappeared out from under him.
“Obviously there was no rail,” a sore but apparently not seriously injured Freeman said after the Dodgers’ 4-2 win against the Royals.
He pitched sideways, practically clearing the first set of steps and landing on the second flight. Freeman braced himself on his right side, which took the brunt of the impact. But thanks to the angle of the steps, he never hit his head, he said.
“Kneecaps are sore, shoulder is sore, hand is sore, wrist is sore,” Freeman said. “I mean, I fell. But I’m in good spirits. I’ve already cold tubbed. I’ve done everything I needed to do to put myself in a position to be able to hopefully play [Thursday].”
Manager Dave Roberts described Freeman’s status as “day to day” and noted that he’d already planned to give him a day off Friday, the second game of a four-game series against the Brewers. The Dodgers will monitor how Freeman is feeling Thursday morning.
“I think that we really dodged the bullet,” Roberts said. Freeman did not undergo any imaging on his various aches and pains, although he said head athletic trainer Thomas Albert asked if he felt like he needed any.
“I said, ‘Do you want to do a whole-body X-ray?’” Freeman recounted. “And he was like, ‘We can.’ But no, I’m OK.”
Freeman was sore immediately after the fall but finished that half inning in the field. He said after the adrenaline wore off, he motioned to the dugout that he might need a pinch-hitter in the bottom half of the eighth. He was due up first.
Utility player Tommy Edman took the at-bat for him, and Kiké Hernández replaced him at first in the top of the ninth.
It wasn’t the first time Freeman has taken a tumble chasing after a foul ball, but he estimated the last time was about a decade ago, with the Braves in Arizona before they extended the netting.
“Actually went down probably like 10 feet,” Freeman said. “I hit seats and everything. So not my first time.
Tarik Skubal made his home debut Monday, but the down-on-their-luck Dodgers still needed every bit of offense they could muster to back him up.
They held off Kansas City 6-5, salvaging the Dodger Stadium introduction of baseball’s premier trade-deadline acquisition.
Skubal, the back-to-back Cy Young Award winner, pitched five innings, giving up four hits and three runs. He struck out six.
It was a solid outing, but the Dodgers needed their slumbering bats to come alive too.
Max Muncy had a bases-loaded triple in the sixth to give the Dodgers a 5-3 advantage, their first lead of the game.
But the Royals answered in the seventh with a two-run homer by Kyle Isbel, forging a 5-5 tie.
In the bottom of the seventh, Freddie Freeman put the home team up for good, hitting a single to right that drove in Shohei Ohtani.
Impossible to know if the win marked a turnaround or simply a tourniquet for the Dodgers, who entered having lost eight of nine, including sweeps by Boston and the Chicago Cubs. They had lost seven in a row before finally winning Saturday at Arizona, then resuming the slide Sunday with a loss to the Diamondbacks.
On the flight home, manager Dave Roberts had a jarring realization.
“We’re a wild-card team right now,” he said. “We’ve got to get going and play with urgency.”
The Dodgers had 10 hits, a welcome development for a team that has had a terrible time seeing and reacting to pitches — and particularly fastballs.
The Athletic crunched the numbers and found no team in baseball has had as dramatic an increase in fastball percentage, with the Dodgers seeing that number climb steadily since May.
“It never feels good to be bullied,” Roberts said. “And to know that teams go after us with the fastball more than any team in baseball, that’s bothersome. That would bother me. … We’ve scored a lot of runs — fourth in baseball — but that doesn’t tell the whole story. The story is being the best version of ourselves, and that’s hitting the fastball and making adjustments in at-bats, situationally, all of it.
“So yeah, it’s something that I hope our guys will take that personally. We shouldn’t get bullied.”
By the fifth inning, the Dodgers were out of ABS challenges, with Miguel Rojas tapping his helmet to check on a called strike that was, well, squarely in the strike zone.
That came after an unsuccessful challenge by Andy Pages in the fourth, and his track record on those inquiries is grim. Thirteen of his 24 challenges were confirmed strikes.
Kansas City’s Jac Caglianone had 20/20 vision, with a pair of two-strike hits that gave the Royals a 3-0 advantage. The first was a low-velocity groundball threaded up the middle to drive in a run. In the third, he hit a two-run shot over the right-field wall.
It wasn’t until the fifth that Skubal finally punctuated “Jac” with a K.
By that point, the Dodgers had clawed their way back to 3-2, driving in runs with clutch hits by Ohtani and Freeman that got the crowd buzzing again.
Tuesday marks the return of Blake Snell, who underwent left elbow surgery and hasn’t pitched for the Dodgers since May 9. That’s back-to-back nights featuring multiple Cy Young Award winners.
Roberts said he would like to see Snell throw five innings, roughly 75-80 pitches, in his return.
“I feel very confident,” Roberts said when asked about Snell getting back up to speed. “I had a great conversation with him yesterday. He’s on a mission, and I like when great-talent players have that mindset.”
Likewise, Roberts said catcher Will Smith, recovering from an inflamed disc in his neck, is “pain free” and on track for an imminent return.
“He’s been throwing, the weight-room stuff each day,” he said. “It’s been better, so this is going to be a big week for Will. And my expectation is that he should be taking some pitching, some coaches’ batting practice at some point this week.”
NEW YORK — Kyle Tucker’s first home run in nearly a month lifted the Dodgers to a 4-2 victory over the New York Mets on Friday night.
Starting pitcher Roki Sasaki held the Mets to just three hits, which included a solo homer from Luis Roberts Jr. that accounted for the only run Sasaki surrendered. He threw seven innings for the third time this season.
The extra velocity that Sasaki mustered in his last start against the New York Yankees — when he surpassed 101 mph in a regular season game for the first time in his MLB career — didn’t make an encore against the Mets (43-61).
Instead, Sasaki leaned on his splitter, throwing it 47% of the time, compared to his season average of 26%.
The Dodgers tied the score 1-1 in the fourth inning. Freddie Freeman, who finished with three hits, led with a single. Mookie Betts matched him, then Miguel Rojas stayed back on a changeup and sent it to deep right field for a sacrifice fly.
The Dodgers twice fell victim to Mets right fielder Carson Benge’s arm in the fifth and sixth. First, Shohei Ohtani was thrown out trying to stretch a double into a triple after a relay throw by Francisco Lindor. Benge threw out Freeman at the plate in the sixth on a Rojas popout to right.
Kyle Tucker follows through on a two-run home run for the Dodgers in the eighth inning of a 4-2 win Friday night over the New York Mets.
(Jim McIsaac / Getty Images)
In the seventh, the Dodgers (66-38) started to build another rally. Dalton Rushing laid down a bunt with runners on the corners. But it bounced right to pitcher Brooks Raley, who flipped the ball to the plate to eventually snare Tucker in a rundown between third and home.
On the next at-bat, Ohtani drove in Teoscar Hernández from third on a sacrifice fly to center field.
Tucker’s two-run homer in the eighth provided the Dodgers some insurance they would end up using when Evan Phillips gave up a solo homer to Francisco Alvarez in the bottom of the inning. It was Tucker’s first home run since June 27.
Injury updates
Right-hander Tyler Glasnow (back spasms) has progressed to the live batting practice phase of his rehab progression, manager Dave Roberts said. It’s a promising sign for a pitcher who twice had to shut down throwing early in his rehab when he aggravated the injury.
Closer Edwin Díaz (arthroscopic elbow surgery) came out well from throwing on back-to-back days in a triple A rehab assignment.
“We talked about him flying across the country; doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Roberts said. “So I think he’s supposed to pitch on Sunday, and then if that goes well, he should be back with us when we get back on Tuesday.”
The Dodgers begin a six-game homestand Tuesday, against the Seattle Mariners and Boston Red Sox.
Catcher Will Smith’s timeline to return from a neck injury remains unclear, after the Dodgers temporarily shut him down from baseball activities, beginning around the All-Star break.
“He’s pain free,” Roberts. “He’s getting back into being more active.”
Bo Lowrance models his game after Freddie Freeman. So, it’s fitting that the Dodgers selected the 6-foot-5, 200-pound high school infielder — ranked the No. 21 overall prospect by MLB.com — with the 40th pick in the MLB amateur draft on Saturday.
“He’s obviously a first baseman, and I’m on the left side, so defensively a little different,” Lowrance said of Freeman during a conference call with media. “But he’s still unbelievably athletic, and a big thing that I’ve watched for years is his approach and how he uses the whole field. … [Freeman is] somebody that I’m always trying to emulate.”
Lowrance hit .435 with 12 home runs last season at Christ Church Episcopal School in Greenville, S.C.
A left-handed batter and right-handed thrower like Freeman, Lowrance is expected to develop as a shortstop — noting former Dodger Corey Seager has a “super smooth” defense at 6-4 he hopes to replicate — with a potential role at third, depending on how the prep star grows into his frame.
“Yeah, definitely want to be a shortstop,” Lowrance said. “I believe I’m capable of it. I think I have the glove skills and the athleticism. I think it’s just going to turn into who I want to become at the plate in terms of my overall size and frame. Like, if I ultimately put on a bunch of weight and kind of grow out of the shortstop position, then maybe that’s where that’ll change.”
Lowrance hit it off with the Dodgers’ front office in June at the draft combine in Phoenix.
And even though the Dodgers didn’t exactly see the Freeman comparison Lowrance mentioned, they would be thrilled if he turned out anything like the 10-time All-Star.
“Bo was definitely our main target coming into the day,” Dodgers amateur scouting director Zach Fitzpatrick said. “Probably would have said there’s a pretty low chance we were able to acquire him, had you asked me in the morning. So as the picks start coming off the board and realizing there’s a little bit more opportunity to get him, our excitement level climbed. And then to actually be able to call his name was a home run for us.”
“I’ve been in communication with them for a while,” Lowrance added. “I’ve loved their scouting staff. I have a great relationship with them.”
The Dodgers entered the draft with the smallest bonus pool at $3,951,900; the White Sox had the most cash to work with, boasting $20,489,500.
Fitzpatrick, though, said the Dodgers’ strategy centered around taking the best player available.
The approach carried over into the Dodgers’ second and final pick on the day — Florida right-handed pitcher Russell Sandefer at No. 132.
Sandefer posted a 3-2 record as a junior in 2026 with a 4.42 ERA over 19 games and 12 starts. The Dodgers were intrigued by his repertoire and heat.
“As we dove into Russell throughout the spring, kind of all departments — from scouting and what we saw at the park to our player development group and our analytics group — kind of flagged Russell as very intriguing and then having a lot of upside left,” Fitzpatrick said.
“A starter at Florida, threw a lot of strikes; there’s obviously velocity, there’s a deep mix, and he performed and had some pretty stellar outings along the way that helped us believe in his upside and different ways we can help him access it more consistently.”
Lowrance was happy to be part of the Dodgers’ draft class.
“Just a whole wave of emotions,” he said. “I’m extremely grateful, first off, and couldn’t be more excited. I mean, yeah, I’ve said it already: It’s the best team in baseball, and nobody else that I want to be a part of.
SACRAMENTO — Teoscar Hernández was back from a hamstring injury, and a little bit humble. He was about to play his first game in a month for the Dodgers.
“I don’t think they really need me in the lineup,” he said, with a hint of a smile.
Hernández hit 58 home runs over his first two seasons with the Dodgers, each of which ended in a World Series championship, so of course they need him. But, in his absence, the Dodgers had more than doubled their National League West lead.
No matter: The Dodgers boosted their division lead to 11 games Monday, with a 9-4 victory over the Athletics. Shohei Ohtani, Max Muncy and Andy Pages homered to highlight a 17-hit attack.
The Dodgers are on pace to win the NL West by 21 games. They boast the best record in the major leagues at 55-30, and Ohtani and the Traveling All-Stars remain baseball’s best road show.
Before the game, a guy setting up one of the merchandise stands here pointed to all the Dodgers gear for sale. He wore a Dodgers cap. He said he wished he had more Dodgers stuff to sell, because the crowd would be overwhelmingly in favor of the Dodgers.
And so it was, one day after San Diego fans complained of all the Dodgers partisans at Petco Park. In Sacramento, where the wandering home team wears a Sacramento patch on one jersey sleeve and a Las Vegas patch on the other sleeve, there were loud cheers for Ohtani and Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts, and loud chants of “Let’s go, Dodgers!”
Every Dodger in the starting lineup had two hits except for Betts, who had one.
Eric Lauer, imported to fortify a starting rotation without Glasnow and Snell, worked six innings to record the victory. He gave up three runs and four hits in the second inning, no runs and four hits over the other five.
Dodgers starting pitcher Eric Lauer worked six innings to record the victory. He gave up three runs and four hits in the second inning, no runs and four hits over the other five.
(Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)
He is 3-0 with 2.88 earned-run average in six starts for the Dodgers, the last three of them classified as quality starts.
Glasnow and Snell are weeks away from returning, and maybe more, but Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said they would not lose their job because of injury.
“Eric coming over here knew that this was the deal, right?” said Roberts, who posted his 999th career win. “Until they get back. We just don’t know when. He’s just got to stay focused on doing his job. Then when that time comes we’ll see what happens.”
In the top of the second, the Dodgers bunched four hits, all singles — the first by Hernández, beating out an infield single in his first at-bat since the hamstring injury — to take a 2-0 lead. In the bottom of the inning, the A’s also bunched four hits, including a Colby Thomas home run, to take a 3-2 lead.
The rest of the Dodgers’ scoring: a solo homer by Muncy and a two-run homer by Pages in the fourth, a three-run homer by Ohtani in the sixth, and an RBI single by Freeman in the eighth. The A’s scored the final run on a wild pitch in the ninth.
Miguel Rojas said the Dodgers have flourished in the wake of significant injuries because the organization places a priority on developing players and giving them a fair shot at playing time, citing Pages, infielder Alex Freeland and pitchers Justin Wrobleski and Emmet Sheehan, as well as wise trades for supplementary players, including infielder-outfielder Tommy Edman and outfielder Alex Call.
Shohei Ohtani tosses his bat after hitting a three-run home run for the Dodgers in the sixth inning against the Athletics on Monday night.
(Sara Nevis / Associated Press)
“It’s not living with the narrative of ‘We’re buying championships and spending money,’” Rojas said. “Yeah, we’re spending money to get good players. But we’re not really basing our success just on that.
“The front office does quality work on getting the right players and putting the puzzle together. I feel that’s the reason why we can afford losing a couple guys in the middle of the year, because we have a full team that is ready to step up.”
Still, Rojas conceded none of that would matter without Ohtani, Freeman, Betts and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. And, yes, Rojas said, the Dodgers do have an irreplaceable player.
“It’s going to be really hard if we lose Shohei,” Rojas said. “It’s going to be a little bit different than losing another player. Having Shohei at the top of the lineup every single day and doing both sides of the ball has been really helpful.”
Ohtani gave the Sacramento crowd what it wanted to see: a majestic 432-foot home run, with a supercharged, 112-mph exit velocity. On Wednesday, the last day of the Dodgers’ only scheduled visit here before the A’s move to Las Vegas in 2028, he’ll take the mound to give the people more of what they want to see.
Tampa Bay Rays center fielder Cedric Mullins crashed chest first into the blue padding of the wall as he made one last-ditch effort to save his team from a Dodgers home run. His glove, though, came up empty.
Not even a leaping Mullins, one of baseball’s veteran home-run robbers, could stop Freddie Freeman from doing what the Dodgers first baseman does best: hitting clutch home runs.
Freeman’s two-run home run in the sixth inning Wednesday, set up by Andy Pages’ double an at-bat earlier, lifted the Dodgers to a 5-4 win that allowed them to maintain a season-high nine-game lead over their closest National League West rival, the San Diego Padres (38-35). For the Dodgers (48-27), it was their sixth sweep of the season — all while surviving a shaky start on the mound by the usually unshakable Shohei Ohtani.
“He’s like a lot of our guys — when they feel good, they get their rest, production follows,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of Freeman. “He’s been good for quite some time.”
If Ohtani’s left knee inflammation was bothering the four-time MVP, it didn’t seem to pose that great of a threat as he pitched the first four innings, and he pinch-hit in the sixth inning for Miguel Rojas, who had started at designated hitter.
Tampa Bay (41-30) eventually broke through in the fifth inning, scoring four runs on small-ball hits that found just enough grass. No particular pitch seemed particularly off for Ohtani, though the Rays connected more on his four-seam fastball that inning than the others. A bleeding blister that opened up didn’t help either.
“The stuff was good,” Roberts said. “The sweeper wasn’t as lights out, swing and miss as we’ve seen. He still always finds a way to manage innings and make pitches when he needs to, but yeah, I mean, I think that he was still kind of working through some delivery stuff with the knee.”
A handful of unlucky plays in the fifth left the Dodgers vulnerable. Take Mullins’ single to Freeman. Mullins hit the ball hard enough that Freeman, more than a handful of steps away from first base, wouldn’t be able to make the play unassisted. Ohtani tried his hardest to match Mullins’ speed but couldn’t.
“There was a little confusion with the Shohei inning, as far as you know, Freddie going to second, then Shohei thinking that, so giving them an extra out there,” Roberts said.
After a five-hit inning, Ohtani escaped on a bunt that went to Tommy Edman — playing third base in his return from the injured list — who threw to first for the third out. Ohtani’s ERA, after he surrendered a season-worst four earned runs, rose to 1.47 but still is second only to Milwaukee’s Jacob Misiorowski among pitchers with at least 70 innings.
Shohei Ohtani gave up a season-worst four earned runs in the fifth inning Wednesday.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
“I felt good overall,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. “It’s just really that inning, that fifth inning, that I wasn’t really too pleased. But aside from that, the stuff was good and felt pretty good overall.”
Rays starter Shane McClanahan also ran into trouble in the fourth inning. Alex Call singled in Mookie Betts for the first run, then stole second base. Call sprinted home on an Alex Freeland single, his helmet popping off and skidding a couple of feet into the grass as he crossed home.
McClanahan left the game with the bases loaded after the left-hander walked Edman — his only time reaching base in an 0-for-3 day — before Pages ended the inning by lining out softly to short against Casey Legumina.
The Dodgers came up short in another bases-loaded opportunity the next inning, squandering a chance to take the lead. Kyle Tucker pushed one run across on a bases-loaded walk. Yet, with no outs, the next three batters — Call, Dalton Rushing and Freeland — went down in order. The Dodgers finished with 11 runners left on base, which nearly cost them.
Alex Vesia put the potential tying run on base with a walk and spent most of his ninth-inning outing with Tampa Bay’s Austin Slater on second. The Dodgers intentionally walked Yandy Díaz with two outs to face Jonathan Aranda, who earned a walk. With the bases loaded, Vesia struck out Mullins swinging to end the game. It capped a stretch of nine scoreless innings by the bullpen in this series after the unit struggled during the team’s recent trip.
“I put myself into that mess,” Vesia said with a small smile while shaking his head. “Rush and I were just — I was leaning on him, to be honest. He had some good words of encouragement during a couple meetings. Just trust my stuff. I felt like I was nibbling around the edge. Overall, I’ll take it. It was a good win for all of us.”
Injury updates
Teoscar Hernández, out with a hamstring injury, is scheduled to take live batting practice Thursday. A simulated game is also in the works for the 33-year-old outfielder before a rehab game early next week, Roberts said.
Will Smith is unlikely to be reinstated Friday when he is eligible to come off the injured list. The Dodgers still are trying to figure out ways to make sure he doesn’t regress once the catcher comes back from a neck injury. He did a full workout Tuesday.
“I don’t want to put a say on when he’s going to play,” Roberts said. “But each day is getting better.”
CHICAGO — Dodgers left-hander Jack Dreyer rubbed a new baseball between his hands as he walked back to the mound, a sold-out Rate Field coming alive around him.
Fireworks crackled over the center-field scoreboard. Digital pinwheels spun. Dreyer had just surrendered his second home run of the inning, transforming a low-scoring battle into a lopsided White Sox advantage.
The Dodgers’ recent bullpen problems persisted in a 6-4 loss Sunday, overshadowing a bounce-back effort from Emmet Sheehan. The Dodgers tried to come back in the ninth, but fell short.
“We’ve gotten bit by the long ball, obviously in Pittsburgh, and here tonight,” said bench coach Danny Lehmann, filling in Sunday for manager Dave Roberts while he attended his daughter’s college graduation. “But overall, it’s more the strike throwing and just getting ahead of guys and doing what they’re supposed to do.”
The Dodgers dropped the series 2-1, marking their first series loss since May 8-10 against the Braves.
Sheehan was charged with three runs in five-plus innings, a massive turnaround coming off the second-shortest start of his career, only rivaled by a planned one-inning outing at the end of last season.
On Sunday, he didn’t give up a hit until the fourth inning.
“He got strike one and then understood when to leave the zone when he needed to,” catcher Dalton Rushing said. “He did a great job of that. I think a couple of those guys picked up on tendencies, jumped on a pitch. I felt they were good pitches. I thought he did his job today and gave us a chance to win.”
Sheehan’s velocity has been an indicator of how synced up his delivery has been on any given start this season.
Dodgers starting pitcher Emmet Sheehan delivers against the Chicago White Sox in the first inning Sunday.
(Nam Y. Huh / Associated Press)
On Sunday, his 95.1-mph average fastball velocity was 0.7 mph above his season average, according to Statcast — a promising sign. Results followed.
Sheehan retired 11 of the first 12 batters he faced, just a hit batter away from perfection. With two outs in the fourth, he gave up a double to Colson Montgomery, on a low line drive up the first-base line, just out of reach of Freddie Freeman as he made a diving attempt.
Then against Braden Montgomery, Sheehan worked back from a 2-1 count for an inning-ending strikeout.
Out of Sheehan’s hand, the pitch looked like it was going to cross the plate on the inside corner, about belt high. But as Montgomery started his swing, the firm changeup veered away from his bat at a sharp downward angle.
Montgomery swung over the pitch. A fired-up Sheehan buried his fist in his glove and shouted. With that strikeout, he preserved the Dodgers’ one-run lead.
Freeman provided that run with a solo homer in the first inning. And Sheehan gave the Dodgers plenty of time to extend that lead. In the sixth inning, however, the White Sox finally got to him.
“I definitely felt better early,” Sheehan said. “And then more of the same towards the end. Just pretty frustrating.”
Sheehan’s fastball to Sam Antonacci wasn’t in a bad spot. But in an 0-2 count, he could have put it a little higher or farther inside. Antonacci drove it over the right-field fence.
A single, a stolen base and an RBI double later, Sheehan walked off the mound, the Dodgers trailing 2-1.
Just a few weeks ago, turning the ball over to the Dodgers’ bullpen was a promising move. They were still riding a franchise-record streak of 38 consecutive scoreless innings.
Lately, however, it’s been a rocky ride. The bullpen entered Sunday with a 6.71 ERA since ending that scoreless streak on May 25. Only the Giants and Rockies produced a worse mark over that stretch.
None of the Dodgers’ relievers have been dominant in recent games. Tanner Scott has been credited with three saves but also two losses. Kyle Hurt’s ERA has risen from 0.60 to 4.22. Dreyer, who went 10 straight games without giving up a run before landing on the injured list with left shoulder discomfort, has surrendered five home runs in seven appearances since returning on May 31.
Dreyer gave up three runs and three hits. Then Blake Treinen and Jonathan Hernández held the White Sox the rest of the way.
The Dodgers tacked on three more runs, on a sacrifice fly and an RBI double from Alex Freeland, and a solo homer from Mookie Betts. They stranded runners at the corners in the ninth.
No stranger to coming through in a big moment, the Dodgers star was hoping to see a fastball up in the zone from Angels reliever Kirby Yates.
So Freeman stayed patient, working his way into a full count.
Then Yates gave him what he wanted — and Freeman delivered the 20th walk-off hit of his career.
The Dodger Stadium crowd erupted in celebration as Freeman watched the ball soar over the right-center field wall in the ninth inning of a 1-0 victory over the Angels.
Freddie Freeman hits a walk-off home run for the Dodgers in a 1-0 win over the Angels at Dodger Stadium on Friday night.
Freeman grinned as he rounded the bases. He threw a thumbs up at his teammates before they swarmed him in celebration. He finally had given the Dodgers something to cheer for after being held to just two hits over 25 at-bats.
“I’ve been feeling good lately,” Freeman said. “I was tweaking things early on, just trying to find a consistent feel for things. Sometimes it’s just get a couple of hits, get confidence and get going. Nothing really crazy. It’s the same routine, hitting some soft line drives at the shortstop, and things have been working.”
Through most of the game, the excitement was contained to a pitcher’s duel — a chess game of defensive plays, waiting to see who flinched first.
Dodgers pitcher Roki Sasaki was red hot in what would tie for his longest outing of the season. Sasaki, for the first time this season, threw triple digits in back-to-back appearances, topping 100.6 mph. The Japanese pitcher threw all three of his pitches harder than his yearly average.
Freddie Freeman watches his walk-off home run clear the wall in right-center field to cap a 1-0 win over the Angels at Dodger Stadium on Friday night.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
“I’ve been experiencing a lot of good and bad since 2024,” Sasaki said through interpreter Kensuke Okubo. “But I feel like I’m able to maintain this velocity. I think I’m confident about that, but I’m just keeping working on it to make sure I’m in a better place.”
With the speed uptick, Sasaki has also seen an inverse downtick in the earned runs column on his statline. His monthly ERA reached its zenith at 7.23 in his April starts, descending to its current 4.03 ERA.
In Sasaki’s best starts, the elevated velocity and pitch mix makes the right-hander lethal, giving him extended runway to pitch further into the game. Against the Angels (24-40), the elevated velocity allowed him to throw 4⅓ hitless innings in his career-high 11th appearance of the season. He pitched seven innings, giving up two hits and two walks while striking out 10.
It’s a return to how Sasaki looked when he played in Japan, manager Dave Roberts said. Confidence might be the clearest sign things are clicking. Sasaki thumped his chest after striking out Adam Fraizer in the fifth inning, a rare show of emotion.
“I certainly think we can all agree that the floor for Roki is much higher, and the expectation every time he takes the ball is high, and he’s earned that,” Roberts said. “If you look at the last six or seven stats, it’s been as good as any starter in the big leagues in the consistency of performance. So really proud of him and I know that he wants more, and the floor has just been raised.”
Dodgers pitcher Roki Sasaki delivers in the first inning of a 1-0 win over the Angels at Dodger Stadium on Friday night.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
Some quick thinking from second baseman Miguel Rojas also helped preserve Sasaki’s strong start. On Nick Madrigal’s sharp line drive in the third inning, the pitcher reached for the ball and popped it up with the tip of his glove. The ball ricocheted off its intended course, but Rojas nabbed it with his bare hand, throwing it to first where a lunging Freeman caught it. The play was initially ruled as an infield single, but it was overturned on review.
“When it hits off a pitcher — you’re already going, committed to one way, then you gotta make another,” Freeman laughed. “The old guy’s still got it.”
Madrigal would break the Angels’ hitless run in the fifth with a double off the left-field wall. But, he was left stranded when Sasaki induced a groundout before his strikeout of Frazier.
The Dodgers (41-23) didn’t fare much better against Angels starter Reid Detmers. In the fourth, Freeman singled and moved to third on a forceout on Kyle Tucker. But, with two outs on the board, Will Smith struck out.
Andy Pages squandered a potential scoring opportunity when he was caught stealing in the sixth. The center fielder, who went one for four, has struggled at the plate in recent games. Against Arizona this week, Pages batted .176, collecting only three hits.
As the innings dragged, both the Dodgers and the Angels failed to find momentum. Reliever Chase Silseth took over in the seventh for Detmers, who gave up just two hits, walked two and struck out six. Silseth silenced the opposing batters, issuing only a walk to Smith.
Edgardo Henriquez took over in the eighth, striking out the first two batters he faced. Then, he hit Zach Neto with a pitch, and after Neto stole second, the Dodgers found themselves in a precarious position with Mike Trout at the plate. Not for long, though, as Henriquez struck out Trout.
Roberts, who had watched Rojas and Santiago Espinal go a combined 0 for 4, pinch-hit for both in the eighth. To a roaring applause, Max Muncy entered the batter’s box, his first plate appearance since a scary collision with the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Ildemaro Vargas on Thursday. Muncy, though, went down swinging.
Tanner Scott took the mound in the ninth a day after he gave up a walk-off home run to Arizona’s Ketel Marte. Jo Adell hit a one-out single then moved to second on a sacrifice bunt by Donovan Walton. Roberts then put Blake Treinen into the game, and he got Oswald Peraza to ground out to first.
With Freeman’s sixth career walk-off home run, the Dodgers beat the Angels for the fourth consecutive time this season.
“Freddie just has aura,” Roberts said. “There’s not too many guys in baseball that you’d want in a game-winning situation, and Freddie does it once again.”
Angels second baseman Oswald Peraza walks back to the dugout after grounding out during the ninth inning against the Dodgers.
PHOENIX — The Dodgers had managed to cling to their lead over the Diamondbacks despite the comeback attempt the home team had mounted in the late innings.
Now it was up to left-hander Tanner Scott, coming off his first blown save of the season, to finish the job.
With the would-be tying run standing on first base and one out, Scott crashed hard on Geraldo Perdomo’s sacrifice bunt and zipped a throw across the diamond just in time for the out.
Then to tie a bow on the outing, Scott got Pavin Smith to lunge after an outside slider and ground into the final out of the game.
“It was good to see,” manager Dave Roberts said after the Dodgers’ 6-5 win Tuesday. I thought from pitch one he was pitching with a purpose. Obviously there was no margin with a one-run lead. I just liked the way he was going after those guys.”
Though the Dodgers led for the game from Freddie Freeman’s first-inning homer on, it was a nail-biter. The Diamondbacks rallied against a Dodgers bullpen that had been practically flawless for weeks. Roberts made five pitching changes. But with an offensive bounce-back and strong pitching performances on the front and back end, the Dodgers evened the series at Chase Field.
Mookie Betts, from left, Max Muncy, Freddie Freeman and Alex Freeland await the pitcher.
(Rick Scuteri / Associated Press)
“It’s nice after only scoring one [Monday] to get out and get some runs early on the board,” said Freeman, who led the team with three hits. “Four runs in the first couple innings, you would hope you keep going. But two in the middle innings there was good enough. Pitching was good again. Got a little hairy at the end, but luckily pulled it off.”
Freeman and Ohtani teamed up to give the Dodgers that four-run lead against Diamondbacks starter Michael Soroka in the first two innings.
A double from Ohtani preceded Freeman’s first-inning blast. Then the next inning, Dalton Rushing and Alex Freeland’s back-to-back singles set up Ohtani to score them both when he lined a triple into the right-field corner.
Dodgers starter Eric Lauer, making his second start since the trade that brought him over from the Blue Jays, tossed two scoreless frames to maintain that lead.
In the third, however, Diamondbacks star Corbin Carroll sent a cutter the other way, and it bounced off the top of the left-field wall into the home bullpen for Arizona’s first run of the night.
Lauer relied on soft contact to throw a scoreless fourth inning, but he ran into some trouble in the fifth, with back-to-back singles, a sacrifice fly, a disengagement violation and PitchCom issues.
In a two-run game, Roberts pulled the plug before Lauer could face right-handed No. 3 hitter Gabriel Moreno for a third time, even though Lauer had set him down twice. Lauer’s pitch count was only up to 70, after giving up five hits in 4 ⅔ innings.
“I thought I could have tried to convince him on the mound [to let me stay in], but he kind of stuck his hand out right away, so I didn’t have a huge chance there,” Lauer said. “But afterwards, we talked, and he explained his thought process to me and just reiterated his thoughts, and I agreed. And I think that’s huge, just to be able to have that conversation.”
Lauer did have an inkling, however, that he wasn’t going to be in the game too much longer with Nolan Arenado on deck. Arenado entered Tuesday with eight hits off Lauer in 27 at-bats (.296 batting average). Half of them were homers.
“We’re still learning each other, so it’s just making sure that [he knows] I do believe in him,” Roberts said of their conversation. “If I’m not going to let him go through Arenado right there, I felt it would give Blake the best chance to get us out of that inning in a tight ball game.
“I don’t want him looking over his shoulder. I pushed him in his first start, didn’t push him this start, because he was really good for us. And I just don’t want anything lost in translation or the assumption game. So I just wanted to kind of be forthright.”
Shohei Ohtani reacts after scoring on a single by Mookie Betts in the seventh inning,
(Rick Scuteri / AP)
Roberts turned to right-handed reliever Blake Treinen, who walked Moreno but got out of the inning by inducing Arenado to fly out to left field. Rookie Ryan Ward, in his fourth major league game, made the sliding catch.
The Dodgers (39-22) added insurance in the seventh, manufacturing the first with a double from Dalton Rushing, sacrifice bunt from Alex Freeland, an intentional walk to Ohtani, and sacrifice fly from Andy Pages. Back-to-back singles from Freedman and Betts pushed across a second run.
The Diamondbacks countered. And for the first time, the Dodgers’ lead looked like it was in danger.
Dodgers reliever Kyle Hurt’s command was shaky from the start. And his two walks with less than two out in the seventh came back to haunt him, as both baserunners scored on Arenado’s double off the wall. Ward bobbled the ball as he picked it up for the relay home and a close play at the plate for the second run.
Hurt issued a third walk, a season high, before fellow right-hander Will Klein replaced him.
Pinch-hitter Geraldo Perdomo shot a line-drive single off Klein into shallow left field, loading the bases. Klein walked in a run, which trimmed the Dodgers’ lead to 6-5.
A broken-bat grounder to the right side of the infield, hunted down by Freeman ranging to his backhand side from first base, ended the inning.
Infield defense again got Klein out of a jam in the eighth, turning a double play after back-to-back singles to maintain the lead.
“They’re not going to be clean every time out there,” Roberts said of Hurt and Klein, two relievers he’s trusted in high-leverage situations this year. “They’ve both been very good for us. You’ve got to give those guys credit today, the Diamondbacks. They spoiled some pitches. They hit to the opposite field. They battled tonight.”
Scott (2.10 ERA) took over in the ninth, in his first appearance since Saturday, when he broke a streak of 12 appearances without giving up a run. His wife Maddie posted screenshots of the death threats their family received via social media in the aftermath.
On Tuesday, Scott retired three of the four batters he faced, with only a well-placed single through the right side of the field — a “soft-serve hit, as Roberts put it” — marring the outing.
Said Roberts: “Outside of that, he was really sharp tonight.”
