In a 15-2 win Saturday against the Angels in Anaheim, the Dodgers offense wasn’t able to gain much of a lead until the sixth inning. Then six consecutive free passes spurred an offensive explosion that put the game away.
In fact, Will Smith’s first-inning sacrifice fly scored the only run for either team through the first five innings, as the starting pitchers — Dodgers lefty Justin Wrobleski and Angels right-hander José Soriano — dueled.
Though the Dodgers scored first, Soriano avoided traffic on the bases more effectively than Wrobleski. That is, until Soriano lost command in the sixth.
Dodgers pitcher Justin Wrobleski throws to the plate during a win over the Angels Saturday at Angel Stadium.
(Mark J. Terrill / Ap Photo/mark J. Terrill)
With one out in the sixth inning, Mookie Betts got the Dodgers’ rally started by drawing a five-pitch walk. Freddie Freeman followed suit and Smith wore a curveball to load the bases.
Soriano, who had only allowed one hit, didn’t regain his footing. He walked in two runs before being lifted. And then his replacement, Angels reliever Chase Silseth, hit Teoscar Hernández to bring in a third run for the Dodgers before they logged a hit in the inning.
Alex Call, the eighth Dodgers hitter to step up to the plate in the sixth, finally delivered the only knock of the rally, a two-run single on a ground ball through the left side of the infield.
The strong Dodgers fan presence at a sold-out Angel Stadium made itself known in the eighth inning when Shohei Ohtani drove a two-run triple into the right-field corner, raced to third as it bounced up and off the netting and then scored on a throwing error.
“MVP” chants broke out from the fans clad in blue.
They let out a roar shortly after, when Betts launched a solo homer to left.
The Dodgers continued the barrage in the ninth, scoring on pitcher Alek Manoah’s errant throw that past second base, Hernández’ sharp single up the third-base line and Ohtani’s bases-clearing double into the right-field corner.
That earned more “MVP” chants.
The Dodgers, one day removed from scratching left-hander Blake Snell and pivoting to a bullpen game on Friday, needed Wrobleski to give their relievers a breather.
The Dodgers’ bats ultimately helped take pressure off all the team’s pitchers.
NEW YORK — Mike Trout hit his fifth homer of the series and the Angels overcame a homer by Aaron Judge in their 11-4 victory over the New York Yankees on Thursday afternoon for a four-game split.
Trout, who recently made a mechanical adjustment, went six for 16 with five homers and nine RBIs in the series. Trout hit his latest homer with one out in the seventh inning when he sent a 2-2 slider from reliever Angel Chivilli about halfway up the left field bleachers for a 7-4 lead.
Trout homered in his fifth straight game at Yankee Stadium and became the fourth to hit five homers in a series against the Yankees. The others were Jimmie Foxx (1933), Darrell Evans (1985) and George Bell (1990), according to MLB researcher Sarah Langs.
Trout’s latest homer contributed to a rare loss for the Yankees when Judge and Giancarlo Stanton homer in the same game. Including the postseason, New York is 53-8 when the duo both connect.
Jo Adell added a grand slam in the eighth for the Angels, who lead the AL with 32 homers.
Judge hit his 89th career first-inning homer and Stanton hit a two-run shot to give the Yankees a 3-2 lead in the fourth before the Angels scored four runs in the sixth off Max Fried (2-1) and Fernando Cruz. Ben Rice also homered in the sixth.
Trout walked three times and scored the tying run in a four-run sixth on a double by former Yankee Oswald Peraza, who also hit a two-run homer in the first.
Vaughn Grissom hit a go-ahead RBI single, and Josh Lowe hit a two-run single for a 6-3 lead.
The Yankees lost for the seventh time in nine games and Fried gave up five runs and three hits in 5 1/3 innings. Manager Aaron Boone was ejected for the first time this season after New York batted in the eighth.
Brent Suter opened the game and went two-plus innings. Sam Aldegheri (1-0) gave up a run in 1 2/3 innings.
Dodgers right-hander Shohei Ohtani had navigated the Mets lineup without much trouble until the fifth inning. But he’d also been holding back a little something.
“I can’t go full throttle the whole time,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton after the Dodgers’ 8-2 victory Wednesday. “But considering where the game was at that point, I felt like I just really had to go full throttle and make sure I’m considering the game situation.”
The Mets had just scored their first run of the game — ending Ohtani’s streak of innings without an earned run at 32 ⅔, the longest of his career — and cut the Dodgers’ lead to one.
So he unleashed a 100.2 mph fastball past Tommy Pham, and then 100.3 mph. Pham foul-tipped both and had some choice words with himself on the way back to the dugout.
“He has a little extra gear when he needs it,” manager Dave Roberts said. “I’m sure he was frustrated about giving up a run, and then came back and really went after Pham.”
That strikeout was one of 10 Ohtani had in a performance that was dominant, regardless of the first mark on his previously spotless ERA.
Holding the Mets to one run through six innings, Ohtani logged double-digit strikeouts in a regular-season start as a Dodger for the first time, matching his effort in Game 4 of the 2025 National League Championship Series against the Brewers.
Shohei Ohtani pitches against the New York Mets.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
Roberts said he’d been considering pulling Ohtani after the fifth inning started going sideways.
Ohtani had faced just one over the minimum through the first four innings he pitched. Then in the fifth he issued two walks before giving up a run-scoring ground-rule double to Mets designated hitter MJ Melendez on a line drive into the right-field corner.
Roberts changed his mind after Ohtani steamrolled Pham and got Francisco Lindor to line out to escape the inning without further damage.
“Just added a little more intensity after they scored a run,” Ohtani said. “But overall it felt really nice and easy and loose throughout the whole outing. So I think that’s the reason why I threw a little harder.”
Good thing Roberts sent Ohtani back out, too. He struck out the No. 2 through 4 hitters in the Mets’ batting order, all on different pitches.
The two-way phenom only had one job to worry about Wednesday.
For the first time since 2021, he was not also in the lineup as a hitter while pitching.
“If it weren’t for the hit by pitch [Monday], he would’ve been DHing and pitching tonight,” Roberts said before the game.
Ohtani was hit in the back of his right shoulder by a 94-mph sinker on Monday. Though that didn’t prevent him from serving as the designated hitter the first two games of the series, the Dodgers wanted to lighten the load Wednesday.
“Just feeling what gives him the best chance to stay loose during the outing, feel good,” Roberts said. “There’s still some soreness in there. When he’s hitting, there’s a component that he’s in the cage getting ready to hit, and if we can take that off his plate and just focus on one thing tonight, we felt — training staff, pitching coaches, myself — we just felt it was the best thing for him. So, once I told him, he completely understood.”
Dalton Rushing rounds the bases after an eighth inning grand slam.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
When asked what Ohtani’s initial reaction had been, Roberts widened his eyes in an impressively accurate impression of one of Ohtani’s patented facial expressions.
“I was a little bit surprised,” Ohtani said after the game. “But it made sense hearing what he had to say.”
The next time Ohtani takes the mound, he is expected to also hit. But Roberts didn’t rule out again having Ohtani just pitch if a similar situation arises again.
“It’s something I’m going to keep an eye on if it makes sense, but not just kind of do it proactively,” Roberts said. “It’s something that’s … got to make sense to not have your best hitter not in the lineup.”
To account for Ohtani’s absence in the batting order Wednesday, Kyle Tucker moved up from No. 2 to leadoff, and Dalton Rushing served as the DH.
The Dodgers scored all eight runs via the long ball: a two-run shot from Hyeseong Kim, his first home run of the season, a solo blast from Teoscar Hernández, Rushing’s first career grand slam, and a solo homer from Tucker.
“We had a really good DH hit today,” Ohtani said of Rushing, who also hit a double.
Dodgers closer Edwin Díaz was available Wednesday, for the first time since Friday. But the Dodgers’ five-run eighth inning eliminated the save situation. Instead, right-hander Kyle Hurt made his first major-league appearance since 2024. He gave up a run and had three strikeouts.
Jackie Robinson Day
The Dodgers’ celebration of Jackie Robinson Day began with the annual reflection at the Jackie Robinson statue, with both teams in attendance. Speakers included Robinson’s granddaughters Sonya Pankey Robinson and Ayo Robinson, Roberts, and Bob Kendrick, the president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum.
“We make the rather bold assertion that Jackie’s breaking of the color barrier wasn’t just a part of the Civil Rights movement,” Kendrick said in his speech, “it was the beginning of the Civil Rights movement.”
He broke down the timeline: Robinson debuted with the Dodgers in 1947, years before the Supreme Court ruled on Brown vs. the Board of Education (1954) or Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Ala. (1955). The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was still a student at Morehouse College.
“If you don’t believe that one individual can indeed invoke change, you have to look no further than right here,” Kendrick said, pointing to the statue of Robinson. “Because what he did was incredibly difficult, under some of the most harsh circumstances you could ever imagine.”
