SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — Juriensly De Windt and Shardijon De Lanoi combined to drive in six runs, and Curaçao won its second Little League World Series title, beating Nevada 11-2 in the championship game on Sunday.
De Windt started on the mound and gave up two runs in three innings. Giendry Ryan and Steven Felix were nearly flawless in relief with four strikeouts over the final three innings for the tiny island nation, which previously won the tournament in 2004.
Curaçao had advanced to the finals by winning the international title in 2005, 2019, 2022 and 2023. This time, the group from Pariba Little League in Willemstad had enough firepower from the mound and at the plate to beat the U.S. champion.
Curaçao went unbeaten in the double-elimination tournament before overcoming an early two-run deficit to the team from Henderson, Nev.
Ryan fanned four in 2⅓ innings. Felix forced Nevada’s final batter to pop out to Giendry in center field. Once the ball was safely in his glove, the celebration began.
Giendry tossed his glove in the air as his teammates swarmed him in the outfield. Curaçao’s infielders showered each other with water as a pack of fans tucked behind the third base dugout waved the Curaçao flag.
They were quiet early as it looked like Nevada, the first U.S. team to advance to the championship without a home run, would finally crack Curaçao’s standout pitchers.
Following a bunt from Nevada’s Michael Kleiner, Maddox Bryan hit a line drive to center field, driving in two runs.
Curaçao tied it when De Lanoi lined a ball off the glove of a diving Kleiner at second base.
The international champions took the lead for good on a two-run double by Jaymiell Martina in the fourth. De Windt added a bases-clearing hit in the fifth.
Nevada also was the runner-up last year, falling to Taiwan in the championship game.
For a player who has been so improbable, the Dodgers must now do the impossible.
When it comes to pitching, they must shut Shohei Ohtani down.
Despite suffering a knee ailment and biceps soreness this season, Ohtani is slowly trying to take the mound for the first time in more than two months.
Stop. Just stop.
The Dodgers have no business sticking Ohtani back on the mound. He belongs out there no more than Kiké Hernandez does.
There’s no two ways about it — the Dodgers should not plan on jamming Ohtani back into the starting rotation.
The Dodgers should thank him for his passion, applaud him for his 1.79 ERA in his first 14 starts, promise to return his resin bag next season, and ask him to go to work on that bat.
As much as the fans want to see all Ohtani, all of the time, the next couple of months are not about celebrating a novelty, they’re about winning a championship, and Ohtani can best get that done by avoiding another injury to himself on the mound and directing all of his efforts at the plate.
Recently, his hitting needs all the help it can get. After Saturday’s loss in Detroit, it had been a startling nine games since Ohtani homered or collected an RBI. During that span he had more than twice as many strikeouts as hits (13-5).
In this final month he needs to concentrate on getting his swing right and not worry about bullpens or openers or piggy-backs or any of the numerous machinations involved in getting him back on the mound.
Bottom line, the Dodgers need him more at the top of the order than in the middle of the diamond, and for now, he shouldn’t be in two places at once.
Bottom, bottom line, there is a sense that the Dodgers agree.
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani follows through on a pitch during a game last month at Dodger Stadium.
(Harry How / Getty Images)
Ohtani threw about 20 pitches in a bullpen session Friday and wasn’t 100%, and that set off alarm bells with the Dodgers’ bosses.
While guessing that Ohtani’s balky left knee would not allow him to be 100% by October, manager Dave Roberts openly wondered Saturday whether a pitching comeback is worth the effort.
“Obviously, where we’re at right now with the pitching, the starting pitching certainly being a strength, his value offensively is hugely important, and so we can’t compromise that in any fashion,” Roberts told reporters in Detroit. “So, if throwing potentially cuts into that, that’s not worth the squeeze. So that’s something for me. Very, very bullish on making sure we don’t compromise the hitting.”
Did you hear that? Not worth the squeeze? Exactly.
Are you listening, Ohtani? He’s always been the ultimate team player, so if the Dodgers asked his permission to shut him down, he would agree, right? Right?
Keeping Ohtani off the mound for the rest of the season is a radical view, certainly — c’mon, you’re paying the dude $700 million to hit and pitch! — but it’s a view backed by common sense.
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani prepares to bat during a game earlier this month as Dodger Stadium.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
Point One: The Dodgers won a World Series in 2024 with Ohtani strictly hitting, so it can be done.
Point Two: Last postseason, even with his three-homer, 10-strikeout gem in the National League Championship Series against the Milwaukee Brewers, Ohtani had a playoff ERA of 4.43.
Playing in the postseason is hard. Pitching and hitting in the postseason is nearly impossible. That magical Brewers clincher was his only shining moment.
Point Three: They recently acquired Tarik Skubal specifically to reduce the need for Ohtani, and they now have a nearly unbeatable rotation without Ohtani.
With Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow having returned strong from injuries, they have four starters who easily can dominate a series.
Check out the current seven-game span of games started by Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Skubal, Snell and Tyler Glasnow.
They gave up as many as three runs only twice. They pitched less than six innings only once. Their ERA was 2.38.
Point Four: The struggling Dodgers offense desperately needs Ohtani to get right at the top. Who is going to get the big hit if he doesn’t? Entering the last month, the candidates are few.
Not a slowing Mookie Betts. Not psyched-out Kyle Tucker. Not aging Teoscar Hernández. Maybe Freddie Freeman, but he hasn’t hit a home run since July 4. And maybe Max Muncy, if they pitch to him.
Will Smith will be returning this week after a prolonged absence, and that will help, but not enough.
If anything happens to sideline Ohtani the hitter, the Dodgers are sunk, period.
And if he pitches, lots could happen to him.
The knee. The elbow. Whatever it was that has kept him off the mound since July 3. So much can go wrong if he’s pitching, and any pitching injury could have the double whammy of sidelining him as a hitter.
“I think 100% for me as far as an offensive player, that’s very important,” Roberts said. “As a pitcher, for me, given the strength of our staff, our team, I don’t think that’s as important. I think it’s important for us not to compromise his health in any capacity. But for me, it’s just his presence in the batter’s box is hugely important to him.”
Yes, Ohtani wants to pitch. Yes, the Dodgers promised him he could pitch. But that was before the injuries and the acquisitions and the slump.
Everything is different now. The landscape has changed.
The Dodgers no longer need the arm so badly that they can risk the bat.
Barely 20 bullpen pitches at the end of August? He’s clearly not going to be 100% by October, so shut him down and let him swing.
Shohei Ohtani is 32 and finishing his ninth season. He’s not a kid anymore.
He’s not infallible anymore.
Having him pitch and hit for a second consecutive October indeed would be a great story.
But having him use his bat to lead the Dodgers to a three-peat would be a better one.
DETROIT — Shohei Ohtani is not feeling “100%,” manager Dave Roberts revealed before the Dodgers game against the Tigers on Saturday. And that will be at the center of the team’s conversation about whether to start him Sunday.
It would be Ohtani’s first pitching start since July 3. He’s been just serving as the designated hitter in the meantime, while managing lingering inflammation and soreness in his left knee, primarily aggravated by pitching. But it’s not just his knee that’s ailing him, Roberts said after talking to the Dodgers training staff. His biceps issue from earlier in the year is part of the concern as well.
Ohtani threw a 20-pitch bullpen — shorter than his customary between-starts session — on Friday to tentatively set him up to throw the first inning Sunday.
“The knee, the body, just throwing, pitching, not 100%,” Roberts said. “What percent it is, I don’t know the answer.”
Roberts said he wanted to have clarity after the game Saturday, so he could notify Tigers manager A.J. Hinch and right-hander Tyler Glasnow, who is set to pitch Sunday either way. If Ohtani pitches Sunday, it would be opening for Glasnow.
“I’m not going to ambush those guys, and I’m not going to ambush Glas,” Roberts said. “So I think I would say that after the game, we’ll know definitively.”
If Ohtani doesn’t pitch Sunday, Tuesday, likely before left-hander Eric Lauer, could in theory be an option. But if Ohtani doesn’t feel good enough to start Sunday, two extra days of rest probably aren’t to resolve the issue, making a longer leadup more likely.
“We’re still thinking about potentially the buildup and what that would mean, which is fair,” Roberts said. “But at the end of the day, it’s what’s best for Shohei, what’s best for us, what makes the most sense. That’s kind of where we’re at.”
The longer it takes for Ohtani to return to the mound, the fewer starts he’ll have to build up before the postseason.
“I wouldn’t bet against Shohei,” Roberts said. “But I still think that five innings to the end of the season is aggressive for anyone.”
Though Roberts said the question is more “when,” rather than “if,” Ohtani will return to the mound, the fact that Ohtani’s knee issue (and apparently biceps as well) has not yet resolved calls into question whether it makes sense for him to resume two-way duties this late in the year.
“To be quite frank, I just don’t see everything getting to 100% by the end of the season,” Roberts said. “But there’s a lot of pitchers that are not 100% and still viable. So again, it’s just not an exact science.”
If that holds true, the concern is twofold: both how Ohtani’s health could affect his performance on the mound and at the plate.
“Obviously, where we’re at right now with the pitching, the starting pitching certainly being a strength, his value offensively is hugely important, and so we can’t compromise that in any fashion,” Roberts said. “So, if throwing potentially cuts into that, that’s not worth the squeeze. So that’s something, for me, I’m very bullish on making sure we don’t compromise the hitting.”
Ohtani entered Saturday with a .218 batting average since Aug. 8, when he resumed playing catch. But Roberts pushed back on the impulse to draw a line between Ohtani’s recent offensive dip and his side work on the pitching side.
“It just hasn’t been a whole body of work on the throwing side,” Roberts said. “Honestly, for me, I think the pitch selection hasn’t been good.”
Regardless of Ohtani’s status for Sunday, the superstar’s feedback will continue to play a large role in the Dodgers’ decision-making.
“I think that as the competitor, he wants to do both, and I respect it,” Roberts said. “But nothing I’m saying changes his identity as a two-way player.
“I think in the moment, he still feels that there’s still an opportunity, and I’m not trying to say there isn’t. But I do think that at the end of the day, he’s very aware of our roster, strengths, weaknesses, and his value to the ball club, and whatever that means.”
ATLANTA — Lefty Tarik Skubal hasn’t had time to fully reflect on his time in Detroit. When he learned at the beginning of the month that he was being traded to the Dodgers, he had one night of emotional goodbyes, before shifting his focus the next morning to preparing to face the Cubs in a few days.
Friday won’t be the right time either. He’s scheduled to take the mound against the Tigers, the only organization he’d played for up until three and a half weeks ago, in the series opener.
“I play baseball, and I don’t really want to let any noise or anything outside change or take away from my ability to go play baseball and put our team in a position to win,” he said in a recent conversation with The Times. “So that’s where my focus is always at. It doesn’t matter if it’s opening day of the season, it doesn’t matter if it’s spring training, it doesn’t matter if it’s the dog days of July, it doesn’t matter if it’s the postseason. For me, the game is always the same game, and that’s something that I take a ton of pride in.”
Even in his short time with the Dodgers, Skubal has thrown himself into the task at hand, from the way he’s pitched, to his commitment to connecting with his new teammates, to how he’s handled questions about his impending free agency.
Oddly enough, after the World Series favorites traded for the best pitcher available, they lost the next six games as part of a seven-game losing streak.
“Everyone around here was like, ‘Hey, we win games here,’” Skubal said. “And I go, ‘I don’t know, maybe it’s me.’”
Eventually, the Dodgers did win a game with Skubal on the roster. They even swept two series straight — before running into the Braves this week. And as Skubal has settled in, he’s enjoyed the sheer abundance of baseball conversations going on around him all the time, whether it be a pitcher chatting with the pitching coaches about sequencing, or hitters breaking down how an opposing pitcher attacked him.
“No one’s ego is too big to ask a question and try to learn from anybody,” Skubal said. “So I think that’s what makes this team so good. I think that’s why they tick, and I think that’s why they’re so good, especially in September, is they’re just not afraid to fail. They’re going to try and learn as much from each other as possible. I just love being a part of that.”
Likewise, his new teammates have loved him embracing them right away.
“You can’t tell whether he’s pitching or not because his personality never changes,” Kiké Hernández said. “And I appreciate how talkative he is, like even during his starts, like in the middle of the game, which is kind of refreshing.”
Already, Skubal’s joining in on pregame handshake lines and slapping the dugout railing in time to Roki Sasaki’s warm-up music. After Miguel Rojas nicknamed him “Scooby Doo Pa Pa,” Skubal used the song that inspired the name on an Instagram post.
“At the end of my career, if the one thing [all my ex-teammates] say about me is, ‘Yeah, he was talented on the field, but he was an even better teammate,’ that’s what I want to be remembered as,” Skubal said.
Skubal is only under club control for the rest of the season, but he’s consistently said he doesn’t want to address free agency.
“I really am probably not going to get to that until this season’s done,” he said. “Until, hopefully, I’m holding up a trophy and I’m celebrating with these guys for two weeks, and I’m going to [have a headache] for a month after.”
A video clip from Skubal’s appearance on the podcast “Pardon My Take” caused a stir on social media, when he said, “I would love to play my whole career in Detroit” and expresses hope that the Tigers are involved in negotiations in November. But Skubal points out the missing context in that clip.
His response was to a question that described the Tigers trading him as an “unfortunate part of where baseball is.” He understood the premise as, smaller markets can’t retain their stars.
Pitcher Tarik Skubal (29) hugs Jack Flaherty in the dugout after getting pulled from his last start with the Tigers on July 29.
(Paul Sancya / Associated Press)
“Which I don’t agree with,” said Skubal, who has thought a lot about the larger picture as a member of the MLB Players Assn. Executive Subcommittee. “You can retain whoever. Now, the longer you wait, the harder it is to get guys to give away the years to hit free agency. I think that’s just the business of baseball, and that’s not any different than any other sport.”
He backed his point with counterexamples on each side: the Royals signing homegrown star Bobby Witt Jr. to an 11-year extension worth $288.8 million guaranteed, and the Yankees’ Aaron Judge still hitting free agency in 2022 (before ultimately re-signing).
“There’s narratives around the sport that I don’t agree with, and that’s one of them,” Skubal said.
Though Skubal excels at focusing on the present, he also seems to sense how much weight his words carry. Wanting to avoid out-of-context reading between the lines as he praised the Dodgers, Skubal made sure to note that he wasn’t comparing his new situation with his old one.
He’s made clear over and over how special his time in Detroit was to him.
Skubal’s resolve hasn’t been tested in exactly the way it will be on Friday. But he’s performed on that same mound under unique circumstances.
When Skubal took the mound in his last start for the Tigers on July 29, he knew it could be a turning point for him and the club. The Tigers lost in extra innings, but he made a quality start and recorded his 1,000th career strikeout before leaving the game to a standing ovation at Comerica Park.
“You really appreciate that stuff,” Skubal said. “And I went down the tunnel and had some conversations with coaches that were pretty emotional too.
“You appreciate everything because without fans, this game is nothing. If no one showed up, we wouldn’t be able to play baseball for a living.”
He’s sure to have quite the reception on Friday, too. And even though Skubal excels at compartmentalizing, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts had one request for the Tigers.
“I hope they do the festivities the night after we win on Friday,” Roberts said, “so the emotion doesn’t get to him and he can just kind of enjoy the welcome back.”
The Dodgers have struggled at times since the All-Star break, but Will Smith’s return from injury and Shohei Ohtani’s return to pitching should help.
