Was Edgardo Henriquez the best option to pitch to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the seventh inning with two outs and runners on the corners?
Maybe, maybe not.
And that was the problem.
The problem was that Dodgers manager Dave Roberts didn’t have a choice that was clearly better than to place the game in the hands of a hard-throwing but unreliable 23-year-old rookie.
Henriquez walked Guerrero on a 99.9-mph fastball that sailed into the opposite batter’s box, evading the grasp of catcher Will Smith and allowing Addison Barger to score.
A manageable two-run deficit was now three and about to become four.
The Dodgers were on their way to a 6-1 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays on Wednesday night, the Game 5 result placing them at a three-games-to-two deficit in this World Series.
For Roberts, that seventh inning didn’t represent a manager’s nightmare. That was a manager’s night terror.
What else could Roberts do?
Stick with starting pitcher Blake Snell? Snell had already pitched to Guerrero three times and his pitch count was at 116.
Use closer Roki Sasaki as a fireman? He’s their only dependable reliever and Roberts wasn’t about to use him in a non-elimination game in which his team was down.
Turn to last year’s postseason hero Blake …? Never mind, that question isn’t even worth being asked in its entirety.
“It’s hard because you can only push a starter so much,” Roberts said. “I thought Blake emptied the tank.”
The Dodgers somehow concealed their piñata of a bullpen in the three previous rounds of the postseason, but that bullpen is now catching up with them.
Reversing their series deficit will almost certainly require some of their starters to pitch in unfamiliar roles over the next two games, including Shohei Ohtani as an opener on three days’ rest in a potential Game 7.
Snell figures to be a candidate to also pitch in Game 7, perhaps as a middle reliever. Tyler Glasnow is expected to be available out of the bullpen in at least one of the two remaining games.
Besides Sasaki, the relievers can’t be trusted.
In each of the team’s three losses in this series, the games turned when the starting pitcher was removed with men on base. In all three instances, the bullpen made a mess of the game, allowing the inherited runners to score.
“You look at the three games that we lost, it spiraled on us with guys on base,” Roberts said. “Guys got to be better.”
They can’t.
This reality makes the bullpen’s heroic performance in the 18-inning victory in Game 3 all the more miraculous. The Dodgers are fortunate this series isn’t already over.
The construction of this particular bullpen has to be one of the greatest front-office blunders in franchise history, as it could cost the team a World Series in a season in which it has Ohtani, Freddie Freeman and a billion-dollar rotation.
How did this happen?
Start with Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates. The Dodgers committed a combined $85 million to the two relievers and neither of them is even on the roster.
Look at the injured list. Brusdar Graterol missed the entire season with shoulder problems. Evan Phillips underwent Tommy John surgery.
Finally, examine what the Dodgers didn’t do at the trade deadline. Everyone — and by everyone, I mean everyone except Andrew Friedman’s front office — knew they were in desperate need of bullpen help. Counting on some internal solutions working out, the only reliever they acquired was Brock Stewart. The notoriously brittle Stewart went down with a shoulder injury and didn’t pitch in the postseason.
What the Dodgers did was the baseball equivalent of building a breathtaking mansion but forgetting to install any toilets.
Now, the entire residence stinks, the Dodgers one loss away from losing a World Series that should be theirs.
In large part, because the pitcher acquired to be its anchor was struggling to find himself.
It’s easy to forget now, with Blake Snell in the midst of a historic October performance that has helped lead the Dodgers back to the World Series. But for most of his debut season in Los Angeles, the two-time Cy Young Award winner and $182-million offseason signing was grappling with frustration, enduring what he described recently as “the hardest year of my career.”
First, there was well-documented early adversity: A shoulder problem that Snell quietly pitched through in two underwhelming starts at the beginning of the campaign, before sidelining him on the injured list for the next four months.
Then, there was an ordeal Snell detailed last week for the first time: In late August, on the same day his wife, Haeley, gave birth to the couple’s second child, Snell got so sick in the hospital that he fainted, was taken to the emergency room, and kept overnight hooked up to IV fluids.
“It’s been a lot,” Snell told The Times last week, while reflecting on a difficult season now primed for a triumphant final act. “But that’s what this is all about. Find the best in yourself. Fight through all the doubt, the bull—. And figure it out.”
Dodgers vs. Toronto Friday at Toronto, 5 p.m., Fox, AM 570, KTNQ 1020, ESPN Radio
Saturday at Toronto, 5 p.m., Fox, AM 570, KTNQ 1020, ESPN Radio
Monday at Dodgers, 5 p.m., Fox, AM 570, KTNQ 1020, ESPN Radio
Tuesday at Dodgers, 5 p.m., Fox, AM 570, KTNQ 1020, ESPN Radio
*Wed., Oct. 29 at Dodgers, 5 p.m., Fox, AM 570, KTNQ 1020, ESPN Radio
*Friday, Oct. 31 at Toronto, 5 p.m., Fox, AM 570, KTNQ 1020, ESPN Radio
*Saturday, Nov. 1 at Toronto, 5 p.m., Fox, AM 570, KTNQ 1020, ESPN Radio
*-if necessary
CLIPPERS
Walker Kessler had 22 points and nine rebounds, Lauri Markkanen scored 20 and the Utah Jazz beat the Clippers 129-108 on Wednesday night in the season opener for both teams.
Brice Sensabaugh added 20 points off the bench for Utah, which set a team record for points in a season opener.
The new-look Clippers appeared confused on the court at times in a disappointing debut for a team with lofty aspirations. Ivica Zubac led them with 19 points and seven rebounds. James Harden and Brook Lopez each scored 15. Kawhi Leonard had 10 points on 3-of-9 shooting.
It was their most lopsided season-opening loss in 17 years.
From Bill Plaschke: The extraordinary athlete stepped on to the Crypto.com Arena court baseline during the first quarter of the Lakers season opener Tuesday night amid great buzz.
When his smiling face was later shown on the video board, he was enveloped in the night’s loudest individual cheers.
With injured and bespectacled James watching stoically from the end of the Laker bench while new owner Mark Walter was witnessing the same mess in a baseline seat nearby, the Lakers stumbled their way to a 119-109 loss to the Golden State Warriors.
1921 — Green Bay Packers play 1st APFA (forerunner to NFL) game; beat Minneapolis Marines, 7-6 at Hagemeister Park, Green Bay, Wis.
1949 — Don Doll of the Detroit Lions intercepts four passes in a 24-7 victory over the Chicago Cardinals.
1960 — Jim Martin of Detroit becomes the first kicker to kick two field goals over 50 yards in a game as the Lions beat the Baltimore Colts 30-17.
1964 — Joe Frazier dominates German Hans Huber for an easy points win to capture the boxing heavyweight gold medal in Tokyo.
1971 — Greg Pruitt rushes for 294 yards on 19 carries to lead the Oklahoma Sooners to an NCAA record 711 yards rushing and a 75-28 pounding of Kansas State.
1976 — Pittsburgh’s Tony Dorsett rushes for 180 yards in a 45-0 rout over Navy to become the top career rusher in NCAA history with 5,206 yards.
1988 — Dan Marino passes for 521 yards, three touchdowns and five interceptions as the Miami Dolphins lose to the New York Jets 44-30. Marino completes 35 of 60 passes as he produces the second-best single-game total yardage in NFL history.
1993 — The Toronto Maple Leafs break the NHL record for most victories at the start of the season, winning their ninth straight game by beating the second-year Tampa Bay Lightning 2-0.
1999 — Florida State’s Bobby Bowden gets his 300th win with a 17-14 win over his son, Clemson coach Tommy Bowden. With the victory Bowden joins Bear Bryant, Pop Warner, Joe Paterno and Amos Alonzo Stagg as the only major college coaches to reach 300 victories.
2000 — The New York Jets, trailing 30-7 at the end of the third quarter, come back to beat the Miami Dolphins 40-37 in overtime on Monday night. The Jets score four touchdowns and a field goal in the fourth quarter to force overtime.
2005 — San Diego’s LaDainian Tomlinson is held to a career-low 7 yards rushing in 17 carries and fails to score in the Chargers’ 20-17 loss at Philadelphia, ending his NFL record-tying streak of games with a touchdown at 18.
2008 — Carolina’s Brandon Sutter gives one of hockey’s most famous families another milestone, scoring his first NHL goal in a 4-1 loss at Pittsburgh. The 19-year-old Sutter, son of New Jersey Devils coach Brent Sutter, is the ninth member of the Sutter family to play in the NHL.
2011 — Tim Tebow rallies the Broncos for two touchdowns in the final 2:44 of the fourth quarter to force overtime, and Matt Prater’s 52-yard field goal gives Denver an improbable 18-15 victory over the stunned Miami Dolphins. The Broncos appeared beaten when they trailed 15-0 with 5:23 left and took over at their 20.
2016 — Jay Ajayi ties an NFL record by surpassing 200 yards rushing for the second game in a row, helping the Miami Dolphins rally past the Buffalo Bills 28-25. Ajayi rushes for 214 yards in 29 carries after totaling 204 yards a week earlier in a win over Pittsburgh.
2019 — All-Star point guard Kyrie Irving pours in 50 points, setting a new NBA record for points on debut with a new team as his Brooklyn Nets go down 127-126 at home to the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Compiled by the Associated Press
THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY
1945 — Jackie Robinson signs a contract with the Montreal Royals, minor league farm team of the Brooklyn Dodgers.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
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For much of the year, the Dodgers’ starting rotation felt broken.
In large part, because the pitcher acquired to be its anchor was struggling to find himself.
It’s easy to forget now, with Blake Snell in the midst of a historic October performance that has helped lead the Dodgers back to the World Series. But for most of his debut season in Los Angeles, the two-time Cy Young Award winner and $182 million offseason signing was grappling with frustration, enduring what he described recently as “the hardest year of my career.”
First, there was well-documented early adversity: A shoulder problem that Snell quietly pitched through in two underwhelming starts at the beginning of the campaign, before sidelining him on the injured list for the next four months.
Then, there was an ordeal Snell detailed last week for the first time: In late August, on the same day his wife Haeley gave birth to the couple’s second child, Snell got so sick in the hospital that he fainted, was taken to the emergency room, and kept overnight hooked up to IV fluids.
“This is awful,” he thought to himself then.
Which now, has made his dominant postseason — including an 0.86 ERA in his first three playoff outings, and a scheduled Game 1 start in the World Series on Friday night — all the more gratifying.
“It’s been a lot,” Snell told The Times last week, while reflecting on a difficult season now primed for a triumphant final act. “But that’s what this is all about. Find the best in yourself. Fight through all the doubt, the bull—. And figure it out.”
Early in the year, that group dealt with its own rash of injuries, losing Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Roki Sasaki and others in a harrowing flashback to 2024.
This time, most of their top arms returned healthy. But up until six weeks ago, they still faced genuine questions for the fall.
At that point, Yoshinobu Yamamoto was mired in an up-and-down stretch following his All-Star selection in the first half of the year, raising worries he could be tiring en route to making a career-high 30 starts.
Glasnow had returned from his early-season shoulder problem, but grinded through six starts from July 29 to Aug. 30 with an ERA above 4.00.
And while Shohei Ohtani was pitching well, he was also continuing to build up in his return from a second career Tommy John surgery.
Suddenly, it all left Snell to be the linchpin for the pitching staff — thrusting him to the center of the late-season resurgence that was soon to come.
“With every great starting staff, you got to have that anchor,” manager Dave Roberts said. “Having him get back to pitch the way he did, sort of raised the bar for everyone.”
This past winter, the Dodgers made Snell their top priority for a reason.
They looked at the patchwork rotation that nearly derailed their 2024 World Series run, and decided the year’s staff needed another star to build around.
Yamamoto, Glasnow and Ohtani already provided a well-established foundation. Clayton Kershaw, Emmet Sheehan, Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May offered plenty of depth to withstand a 162-game marathon.
What was missing, however, was another bona fide ace; the kind capable of swinging postseason series and transforming October fortunes. In Snell, they saw such potential. His presence, they hoped, would complete their title-defense blueprint.
“As we were talking about ways that we could put ourselves in the best position to win a World Series in 2025,” president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said the day Snell was introduced by the club, “all conversations kept coming back to Blake.”
For most of the year, of course, Snell’s impact was limited. After his two injury-hampered starts at the beginning of the season, he remained out of action until after the trade deadline.
During that time, the Dodgers slow-played Snell’s recovery — putting him through a meticulous process (similar to their handling of Glasnow and Ohtani) that was designed to have him ready for the stretch run of the season, and hopefully peaking in time for the start of the playoffs.
Upon his initial return in early August, Snell seemed to be on track, with the left-hander posting a sub-2.00 ERA in his first four outings off the IL.
Then, however, came another unforeseen setback, after he rushed home from an Aug. 22 outing in San Diego for the birth of his child.
By the time Snell’s wife went into labor later that week, the 32-year-old arrived at the hospital feeling “extremely sick,” he recounted last week. At one point, as he got up from a couch to go hold his newly born baby, he said he passed out and fainted right there in the room.
Snell was taken to the emergency room and stayed there overnight, getting two IVs to combat an unspecified illness undoubtedly compounded by exhaustion.
“I couldn’t really stand,” he said. “I just felt awful.”
And yet, a few days later, there Snell was back atop the Dodger Stadium mound; making sure that, after his extended absence earlier in the campaign, he wouldn’t miss another start.
“That’s what I signed up to do,” Snell said. “When I pitch, I just forget about it. I don’t allow a lot of excuses.”
Snell’s illness was unknown at the time, but the physical toll it had taken quickly became obvious. His velocity was noticeably down in a three-run, 5 ⅓ innings start on Aug. 29 against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Six days later, he toiled again during a “frustrating” outing in Pittsburgh, yielding a season-high nine hits and five runs to the lowly Pirates.
Pushing through those games, though, gave Snell a key to hone in on for the rest of the season. “If this is who you are today, figure it out,” he told himself. And finally, with no more disruptions to his routine, improvement flowed quickly.
Dodgers pitcher Blake Snell puts his arm around catcher Ben Rortvedt as they walk back to the dugout together on Sept. 17.
Snell said after that outing, which was followed by one more six-inning, one-run start in his regular-season finale in Arizona: “[I’m] starting to be able to play catch with more intent and work on stuff … Coming through in the push to the postseason, and being able to make it, that’s what the whole season is for.”
The old adage in baseball is that hitting can be contagious.
In the case of this year’s Dodgers, starting pitching evidently can be, too.
As Snell got hot in September, so did the rest of the team’s resurgent rotation. Yamamoto rediscovered his early-season form, winning National League pitcher of the month with an immaculate 0.67 ERA in four starts. Glasnow finished the month with a 2.49 mark, after finally refining the mechanics of his throw. Ohtani, meanwhile, got stretched out to six innings, maintaining his two-way dominance over repeated full-length appearances.
The bar had been raised, with the constant cycle of gems continuing to push it a little bit higher.
The pitchers rode off the momentum and relished in their shared success; to the point that Roberts joked they almost seemed to be competing to outdo one another.
“I think we’re all good,” Glasnow said. “So it was just a matter of time until all of us did good at the same time.”
But in these playoffs, no one has been more lethal than Snell. In his 21 innings so far, he has thrown a scoreless frame in all but one.
Dodgers pitcher Blake Snell walks off the mound after striking out the last batter of the second inning of Game 2 of the NLDS against the Philadelphia Phillies.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
He was good in his first start, producing seven innings of two-run ball against the Cincinnati Reds in the wild-card round. He was superb in the next, going six scoreless against the Phillies in a hostile road environment.
His masterpiece, however, came in Game 1 of the NL Championship Series, when he tossed eight scoreless innings, struck out 10 batters, and ruthlessly toyed with a Milwaukee Brewers lineup helpless to adjust to his manipulative changeup.
“We’ve all known this: Blake, when he’s right, is the best pitcher in the game,” Kershaw, his future Hall of Fame teammate, said afterward. “To have a guy that can do that, set the tone, and just have a guy that you can count on like that, it’s huge.”
For his part, Snell continues to insist that “I feel like I could be way better.” After his repeated setbacks earlier this year, he claims that, “even now, I’m still battling.”
The numbers, of course, tell a different story. In the live-ball era (since 1920), only three other pitchers with 20 or more innings in a postseason had at least 20 strikeouts and a sub-1.00 ERA (Sandy Koufax in 1965, John Smoltz in 1996 and Justin Verlander in 2013).
On Friday night, Snell will be on the bump once again, trying to continue a dazzling streak for himself and his rotation.
What once felt like the hardest year of his career, is now four wins away from being the most fulfilling.
“It’s what you have to go through to win a World Series,” he said. “You can find an excuse, or you can find a way to figure it out.”
MILWAUKEE — First things first: The fans in an outdoor stadium in Philadelphia are louder than the fans in an indoor stadium in Milwaukee. No contest.
They are respectful and truly nice here. They booed Shohei Ohtani, but half-heartedly, almost out of obligation. In Philadelphia, they booed Ohtani relentlessly, and with hostility.
Here’s the thing, though: It didn’t matter, because the Dodgers have silenced the enemy crowd wherever they go this October. The Dodgers are undefeated on the road in this postseason: 2-0 in Philadelphia, and now 2-0 in Milwaukee.
The Dodgers have deployed four silencers. In dramatic lore they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction and death. These are only aliases. Their real names are Snell, Yamamoto, Glasnow and Ohtani.
“It’s amazing,” Tyler Glasnow said. “It’s like a show every time you’re out there.”
The Dodgers won the World Series last year with home runs and bullpen games and New York Yankees foibles, but not with starting pitching. In 16 games last October, the Dodgers had more bullpen games (four) than quality starts (two), and the starters posted a 5.25 earned-run average.
In eight games this October, the Dodgers have seven quality starts, and not coincidentally they are 7-1. The starters have posted a 1.54 ERA, the lowest of any team in National League history to play at least eight postseason games.
“Our starting pitching this entire postseason has been incredible,” said Andrew Friedman, Dodgers president of baseball operations. “We knew it would be a strength, but this is beyond what we could have reasonably expected.
“There are a lot of different ways to win in the postseason, but this is certainly a better-quality-of-life way to do it.”
The elders of the sport say that momentum is the next day’s starting pitcher. In a sport in which most teams struggle to identify even one ace, the Dodgers boast four.
In the past three games — the clincher against the Phillies and the two here against the Brewers — the Dodgers have not even trailed for a full inning.
In the division series clincher, the Phillies scored one run in the top of an inning, but the Dodgers scored in the bottom of the inning.
On Monday, the Brewers never led. On Tuesday, the Brewers had a leadoff home run in the bottom of the first, but the Dodgers scored twice in the top of the second.
On Monday, as Blake Snell spun eight shutout innings, the Brewers went 0 for 1 with men in scoring position — and that at-bat was the last out of the game. On Tuesday, as Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched a complete game, the Brewers did not get a runner into scoring position.
That is momentum. That is also how you shut up an opposing crowd: limit the momentum for their team.
Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto delivers against the Brewers in the fifth inning Tuesday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
“I do think, with what we’ve done in Philly and in coming here, it doesn’t seem like there is much momentum,” Glasnow said.
Of the four aces, Glasnow and Ohtani were not available to pitch last fall as they rehabilitated injuries, and Snell was pitching for the San Francisco Giants.
In the 2021 NLCS, the Dodgers started Walker Buehler twice and Julio Urías, Max Scherzer and openers Joe Kelly and Corey Knebel once each. Scherzer could not make his second scheduled start because of injury.
Said infielder-outfielder Kiké Hernández: “We’ve had some really good starting pitchers in the past, but at some point we’ve hit a roadblock through the postseason. To be this consistent for seven, eight games now, it’s been pretty impressive. In a way, it’s made things a little easier on the lineup.”
In the wild-card round, the Dodgers scored 18 runs in two games against the Cincinnati Reds. Since then, they have 20 runs in six games.
“We said before this postseason started, our starting pitching was going to be what carried us,” third baseman Max Muncy said. “And so far, it’s been exactly that.”
The starters started their roll in the final weeks of the regular season — their ERA is 1.49 over the past 30 games — not that Hernández much cared about that now.
“Regular season doesn’t matter,” he said. “We can win 300 games in the regular season.
“If we don’t win the World Series, it doesn’t matter.”
The Dodgers are two wins from a return trip to the World Series. If they can get those two wins within the next three games, they won’t have to return to Milwaukee, the land of the great sausage race, and of the polka dancers atop the dugout.
There may not be another game here this season. They are kind and spirited fans, even if they are not nearly as loud as the Philly Phanatics.
“That,” Glasnow said, “is the loudest place I’ve ever been.”
So what if an unforeseen hurdle appeared in front of their October path? The Dodgers are on the verge of turning that hurdle into an unexpected but well-planned advantage on their quest to become baseball’s first back-to-back champions in 25 years.
Conventional wisdom says the odds favor a team with a bye, because that team can set up its pitching rotation for the division series just the way it wants while its opponent burns through its best arms in the wild-card series. The Dodgers are one win away from storming through the wild-card series and setting up their pitching rotation for the division series just fine, thank you very much.
That, it turns out, is what you can do when your star-studded starting rotation is healthy and effective for the first time all season, at precisely the right time.
The Dodgers thoroughly outclassed the Cincinnati Reds, 10-5, in Tuesday’s opener of the best-of-three wild-card series. If the Dodgers win Wednesday, or if they win Thursday, they would advance to what would be the premier matchup in all the National League playoffs: the Dodgers vs. the Philadelphia Phillies.
“I think the biggest downside of playing in a wild-card series, obviously, if you’re able to advance, is what your pitching looks like after that,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said. “That’s the cost.
“And I think, with our depth, that’s really mitigated.”
It ain’t over ‘til it’s over. If the Angels could go 6-0 against the Dodgers this season, the Reds could win the next two games.
However, the Reds used their best pitcher, Hunter Greene, in Game 1. The Dodgers have their best pitcher, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, ready to deploy in Game 2.
And, since the best-of-three wild card format was introduced in 2022, all 12 teams that have won Game 1 have gone on to win the series.
So let’s plan this out. If the Dodgers win Wednesday, Shohei Ohtani could start Game 1 of the division series Saturday. If the Reds force a decisive third game Thursday, Ohtani is the scheduled starter — and, if the Dodgers win, Tyler Glasnow, Emmet Sheehan and Clayton Kershaw all could be options for Game 1 of the division series.
Kershaw would be available for sure, as he is not on the wild-card roster and he would be pitching on regular rest.
Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw would be available to pitch Game 1 of the NLDS if the Dodgers advance.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
“To have Clayton Kershaw standing there ready, no matter how we deploy our pitching this week, gets at the cost (of playing in the wild-card round) not being as great,” Friedman said.
And the division series includes an off day after each of the first two games, which would enable the Dodgers to use Snell on five days’ rest for Game 2 and Yamamoto on six days’ rest for Game 3.
The Dodgers have so much flexibility, in fact, that manager Dave Roberts declined to say that Ohtani would start Game 1 of the division series if the Dodgers close out the wild-card series Wednesday.
“You’re getting ahead,” Roberts said, “but one of the first two games, probably.”
It is important that Snell held the Reds to two runs in Tuesday’s victory, but it is more important that he pitched seven innings. The Dodgers asked their relievers to cover two innings with an eight-run lead, and it took four of them to do it.
The Dodgers’ road to success is clear: more of the starters, less of the erratic relievers, and less need to lean on Glasnow and Sheehan in an unfamiliar role.
“The deeper that the starters go in the game — one, it means that we’re pitching good; but, two, you’re giving the bullpen a break and a breather, and they get to be 100% every time they come out,” Snell said.
“That makes for a different game that favors us.”
The Dodgers improvised their way to a title last October, with three starting pitchers and four bullpen games. That was not conventional wisdom, either.
This time of year, however, most postseason teams have three or four reliable starters. The Dodgers have six. If they have to play in an extra round, well, what doesn’t kill them makes them stronger.
One way to keep Dodger relievers from ruining the team’s postseason run is to keep the bullpen gate closed for as long as possible.
Blake Snell gave that strategy a whirl in Game 1 of the National League wild-card series Tuesday, pitching a solid — sometimes brilliant —- seven innings. But even then he and his teammates had to wait out the nightly bullpen meltdown before escaping with a 10-5 win over the Cincinnati Reds to take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-three series.
“Blake was fantastic tonight,” manager Dave Roberts said. “You could see he was in complete control. The fastball was great. The change-up was plus.
“Kind of mixing and matching and he really was in control the entire game.”
The bullpen? Not so much. But we’ll get to that in a minute.
For Snell, it was that mixing and matching that made him so tough, Cincinnati manager Terry Francona said.
“The big difference-maker was his change-up,” Francona said. “It was his ability to manipulate the change-up, even vary it. He’d throw one that was 87 [mph] and one that was 82. And he threw two, three, four in a row at times at times, all different speeds.
“You throw a 97 [mph fastball] in there, and it becomes difficult.”
Snell was efficient from the start, retiring the side in the first on seven pitches. He set down the first eight Reds in order, then after giving up a double and walk in the third, retired the next 10 in a row, allowing him to pitch deep into the game.
Given the bullpen’s continued struggles, that’s likely to be a blueprint the Dodgers will continue to follow in the playoffs.
“It felt good to go deep in the ballgame,” said Snell, whose seven innings matched a season high. “I felt really in control, I could read swings and just kind of navigate through the lineup.
Dodgers fans cheer for Blake Snell as he walks off the mound in the fifth inning.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
“The deeper that the starters go in the game, it means we’re pitching good. But it means you’re giving the bullpen a break. So it just makes for a different game that favors us.”
Tuesday’s start was Snell’s 11th, for three teams, in the postseason. But it was his first since 2022. Getting back to October was one reason why the left-hander signed with the Dodgers 10 months ago (the five-year $182-million contract the team was offered was another reason).
“It’s awesome,” said Snell, who was wearing a blue hoodie emblazoned with the Dodgers playoff slogan “Built For Fall” across the front. “There’s nothing better than pitching a postseason game in front of your home crowd. To be able to enjoy that, it meant a lot.”
And Snell took advantage, breezing into the seventh having given up just a hit. He didn’t give up a run until Elly De La Cruz’s fielder’s choice grounder with two out in the inning.
De La Cruz would score the Reds’ second run on Tyler Stephenson’s double three pitches later.
Snell got the next hitter to end the threat, with the seven innings pitched marking a career playoff best. He had matched his playoff high with nine strikeouts by the sixth inning, which he needed just 70 pitches to complete. He wound up throwing 91 pitches, giving up four hits and a walk, before Roberts went to the bullpen to start the eighth, with predictable results.
Alex Vesia was the first man through the gate and he retired just one of the three batters he faced. He was followed by flamethrower Edgardo Henriquez, who walked the first two hitters and gave up a hit to the third, forcing in two runs.
Jack Dreyer was next and he walked in another run. After entering the inning down by eight runs, Cincinnati brought the tying run to the on-deck circle with one out.
Dreyer eventually settled down, retiring the side, but the three pitchers needed 59 pitches — and 30 minutes — to get through the inning. By the time Blake Treinen came on to finish things off, starter Emmet Sheehan had started warming up.
All told, Roberts needed four relievers to get the final six outs, leaving the Dodgers hoping for a Snell-like performance from Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 2 on Wednesday to avoid straining the bullpen further.
“Those guys are on their heels with the lead we have,” Roberts said of the Reds entering the eighth inning. “When you start being too fine and getting behind, you start giving them free bases, that’s how you can build innings and get momentum. So that’s what I saw in that inning there for sure.
“If we don’t feel comfortable using certain guys with an eight-run lead, then we’ve got to think through some things.”
Maybe Snell will get a chance to finish what he starts next time out. It’s certainly no worse than the alternative.
From Jack Harris: With two out in the seventh inning Wednesday night, and Blake Snell trying to put the finishing touches on his best performance in a Dodgers uniform, Roberts appeared to be coming to the mound after a pair of walks to turn to his shaky bullpen with a three-run lead.
As he usually does when removing a pitcher, his gait was slow — at least, initially.
Once Snell saw him coming, however, Roberts picked up his pace — as he will sometimes do when electing to leave a pitcher in the game.
“You know what, in that situation, I was actually 50/50,” Roberts said. “Obviously, 99.9% of the time, I’ve got my decision made. But in that moment, I was kind of up in the air.”
After a brief discussion with his starting pitcher, he let Snell stay in.
“He’s one of the guys that we have to push,” Roberts explained afterward. “He’s got the track record for it. The DNA, the talent to do it. So it’s important.”
“For us to win 13 games in October, we’re gonna need certain guys to be pushed and go deeper.”
Five throws later, the two-time Cy Young Award winner, and $182-million centerpiece of the club’s offseason, rewarded the decision. He sent Otto Kemp down swinging with a 95 mph fastball. He authored an emphatic ending to his scoreless seven-inning start, one that lifted the Dodgers to a 5-0 win over the Philadelphia Phillies to maintain a two-game lead in the National League West standings.
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ANGELS
Brandon Woodruff pitched five solid innings, Sal Frelick hit a three-run homer and Blake Perkins tied a career high with five RBIs to lead the Milwaukee Brewers to a 9-2 win over the Angels on Wednesday night.
Woodruff (7-2) gave up two hits and one run, struck out nine and threw 52 of his 69 pitches for strikes. He was pitching on 10 days rest to manage his workload after he missed last season while recovering from right shoulder surgery.
Angels starter José Soriano (10-11) exited with one out in the second after being struck by a line drive off the bat of Jake Bauers. Soriano sustained a right forearm contusion. X-rays were negative.
Fortunately for the Chargers, the diagnosis was a dislocated elbow, sidelining him four weeks on injured reserve — far better than the season-ending outcome many had feared.
“He’s like Wolverine,” coach Jim Harbaugh said, invoking the regenerating “X-Men” character. “One of the toughest things I’ve ever seen. He wasn’t going to sit or lay down on the field. … A new level of respect.”
But USC’s rising star defensive coordinator said on Wednesday that he has not been contacted about the open job across town and reiterated that his attention was trained on the Trojans’ upcoming matchup with Michigan State on Saturday night.
“We’ve got a lot of stuff on defense that we’ve got to clean up and improve on,” Lynn said. “So that’s where all my focus is right now.”
From Ben Bolch: The fallout from UCLA coach DeShaun Foster’s dismissal deepened Wednesday when interim coach Tim Skipper disclosed that defensive coordinator Ikaika Malloe had agreed to “mutually part ways” with the team, depriving the Bruins of one of their most respected assistant coaches.
Meeting with reporters for the first time since he was selected to coach the team for the rest of the season, Skipper said he didn’t know the specifics of Malloe’s departure. One person close to the coaching staff, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the subject, told The Times that Malloe couldn’t get past blaming himself for the team’s 0-3 start, even suggesting that he be fired instead of Foster, so it was agreed that it would be best if he took time to regroup and focus on himself.
General registration for 2028 Olympics tickets will open in January 2026, more than a full year ahead of the ticket timeline used during the Paris Games, LA28 announced on Wednesday. Tickets to the Paralympics — coming to L.A. for the first time — will go on sale in 2027.
Beginning next year, fans can register to enter the lottery for Olympics tickets at the organizing committee’s website la28.org. If selected in the random draw, fans will receive a purchase time and date for when ticket drops begin in spring 2026. Fans who are not selected for the first round of ticket drops will be automatically be entered into subsequent ones. LA28 officials plan to announce more information about the process later this year.
Single-event tickets will start at $28, with early access for locals around Olympic venue cities. In addition to major sports zones in Downtown L.A., Exposition Park, the Sepulveda Basin, Long Beach, Inglewood and Carson will host multiple Olympic events. L.A., Long Beach and Carson will host the majority of the Paralympic events.
Salt Lake (10-15-4) has lost four of its last five matches.
Son, who joined LAFC (13-7-8) a month ago from the English Premier League, scored on a breakaway in the third minute for a 1-0 lead. He was left wide open in the middle of the field in the 16th and scored from distance to make it 2-0.
Son ran with Denis Bouanga from midfield on a 2-on-1 breakaway and scored an easy tap-in for a 3-1 advantage. Bouanga scored six minutes later on another breakaway to break a tie with league legend Carlos Vela for the most goals in club history with 94.
1899 — The Cincinnati Open begins. It is the oldest tennis tournament in the United States still played in its original city and is now known as the Cincinnati Masters & Women’s Open.
1938 — The Chicago Bears beat the Green Bay Packers 2-0. Left end Dick Plasman tackles Arnie Herber in the end zone in the fourth quarter for the win.
1946 — Joe Louis knocks out Tami Mauriello in the first round at Yankee Stadium in New York to retain the world heavyweight title.
1960 — Goose Gonsoulin intercepts four passes to lead the Denver Broncos to a 27-21 win over the Buffalo Bills.
1965 — In his first collegiate game, quarterback Billy Stevens of Texas-El Paso gains 483 total yards in a 61-15 rout of North Texas State. Receiver Chuck Hughes has 349 of those yards.
1966 — Baltimore quarterback Johnny Unitas throws 4 touchdown passes in 38-23 win at Minnesota to surpass Y.A. Tittle as NFL’s career leader with 212; finishes career with 290 TD passes.
1967 — U.S. yacht Intrepid beats the Australian yacht Dame Pattie in four straight races to defend the America’s Cup.
1977 — U.S. yacht Courageous beats the challenger Australia in four straight races to defend the America’s Cup.
1982 — In a rare father-son matchup, coach Jack Elway leads San Jose State to its second consecutive upset of quarterback John Elway and Stanford 35-31 in Palo Alto, Calif. John Elway completes 24-of-36 passes for 382 yards and three touchdowns. Spartans quarterback Steve Clarkson, throws for 285 yards, three touchdowns and scores on a three-yard keeper for the win after a Cardinal fumble. Stanford reaches the Spartans’ 26-yard line, but Elway gets sacked on four consecutive plays to end the game.
2005 — Green Bay’s Brett Favre joins Dan Marino and John Elway with 50,000 yards passing and also breaks Elway’s single-stadium NFL touchdown record of 180 with a 4-yard toss to Tony Fisher with 4 seconds left of a 26-24 loss to Cleveland at Lambeau Field.
2011 — At 16, Lexi Thompson becomes the youngest player to win an LPGA Tour event. The 16-year-old Floridian closes with a 2-under 70 to win by five strokes over Tiffany Joh at the Navistar LPGA Classic in Prattville, Ala. Thompson shatters the age record for winning a multiple-round tournament held by Paula Creamer, who won in 2005 at 18.
2011 — Carolina Panthers quarterback Cam Newton sets an NFL rookie record by throwing for 432 yards against the Green Bay Packers. Newton, who tied the record by throwing for 422 yards in last week’s loss at Arizona, completes 28 of 46 passes with one touchdown in the 30-23 loss to the Packers. Newton’s 854 yards passing is also the most yards for a player in his first two games.
2013 — American Jordan Burroughs earns another wrestling world title. Burroughs, a gold medalist at the 2012 Olympics, extends his undefeated streak to 65 matches with a 4-0 victory over Iran’s Ezzatollah Akbarizarinkolaei in the 163-pound category at the Laszlo Papp Sports Arena in Budapest, Hungary.
2016 — Detroit’s Anquan Boldin has a touchdown catch in the Lions’ 16-15 loss to Tennessee, to join Terrell Owens as the only players in NFL history to have at least 1,000 career receptions and a touchdown catch with four teams.
THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY
1903 — Philadelphia’s Chick Fraser pitched a 10-0 no-hitter against the Chicago Cubs in the second game of a doubleheader. The Cubs won the opener 6-5. Fraser struck out five and walked four. Peaches Graham, normally a catcher, was the loser in his only major league decision.
1908 — Bob Rhoads of the Indians pitched a no-hitter against the Boston Red Sox for a 2-1 victory in Cleveland.
1930 — New York pitcher Red Ruffing hit two home runs as the Yankees edged the St. Louis Browns 7-6 in 10 innings.
1954 — The Cleveland Indians clinched the American League pennant with a 3-2 triumph over the Detroit Tigers.
1963 — The New York Mets lost their last game at the Polo Grounds — 5-1 to the Philadelphia Phillies before a crowd of 1,752.
1968 — Ray Washburn threw a 2-0 no-hitter against the San Francisco Giants at Candlestick Park, one day after the Giants’ Gaylord Perry tossed a no-hitter against Washburn’s St. Louis Cardinals.
1980 — Minnesota’s Gary Ward hit for the cycle in a 9-8 loss at Milwaukee. It was Ward’s 14th career game and the home run was his first in the major leagues. The Brewers won the game in the bottom of the ninth on Gorman Thomas’ two-out two-run homer.
1984 — The Detroit Tigers clinched the American League East Division with a 3-0 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers, making the Tigers the fourth team in major league history to lead from start to finish. The other three teams were the 1923 New York Giants, 1927 New York Yankees and the 1955 Brooklyn Dodgers.
1984 — Montreal’s Tim Raines became the first player in major league history with four consecutive seasons of 70 or more stolen bases by swiping four in the Expos’ 7-4 win over the St. Louis Cardinals.
1985 — Boston catcher Rich Gedman hit for the cycle and drove in seven runs as the Red Sox rout the Toronto Blue Jays, 13-1.
1987 — Detroit’s Darrell Evans became the first 40-year-old player in major league history to hit 30 home runs in a season as the Tigers beat the Milwaukee Brewers 7-6.
1996 — Roger Clemens equaled his own major league record, fanning 20 batters and pitching a four-hitter to lead Boston over the Detroit Tigers 4-0.
2003 — Atlanta clinched its 12th straight division title when second-place Florida was mathematically eliminated from the NL East race after a 5-4 loss to Philadelphia. The record title streak started in 1991, when the Braves won the NL West. They moved to the East Division in 1994 and trailed Montreal by six games when the strike stopped the season in August.
2006 — The Dodgers hit four consecutive homers in the bottom of the ninth to tie the game and Nomar Garciaparra’s two-run homer in the 10th lifted Los Angeles to an 11-10 victory over the San Diego Padres.
2011 — Erick Aybar went 4 for 4, with four extra-base hits and tied a franchise record by scoring five runs, leading the Angels to an 11-2 victory over the Baltimore Orioles.
2012 — Dusty Baker managed his 3,000th game, guiding the Cincinnati Reds against one of his former teams, the Chicago Cubs.
2020 — Garrett Crochet becomes the first player in over a decade to go straight to the majors when the #11 pick from the 2020 amateur draft makes his maiden appearance pitching in relief for the White Sox against the Reds. After working out at the Sox’s alternate training site in Schaumburg, IL since being signed, he impresses by striking two of three batter he faces and regularly hitting 100 mph on the radar gun with his fastball.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
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Dave Roberts started out of the dugout with a walk.
Once Blake Snell caught his gaze, it turned into a trot.
With two out in the seventh inning, and Snell trying to put the finishing touches on his best performance in a Dodgers uniform, Roberts appeared to be coming to the mound after a pair of walks to turn to his shaky bullpen with a three-run lead.
As he usually does when removing a pitcher, his gait was slow — at least, initially.
Once Snell saw him coming, however, Roberts picked up his pace — as he will sometimes do when electing to leave a pitcher in the game.
This time, it was the latter.
After a brief discussion between manager and starting pitcher, Snell stayed in.
Five throws later, the $180-million offseason signee rewarded the decision, striking out Otto Kemp with a 95-mph fastball to put an emphatic ending on his scoreless seven-inning start, one that lifted the Dodgers to a 5-0 win over the Philadelphia Phillies.
Entering Wednesday, all the discussion around the Dodgers had centered on the bullpen. The slumping unit was coming off two of its worst performances of the season. The majority of Roberts’ pregame address with reporters was spent dissecting how to fix it.
“Before the results, has to be confidence,” Roberts said, comparing the relief corps’ struggles to the second-half scuffles that the offense only recently emerged from. “It’s just kind of trying to reset a mentality, a mindset and expect that things happen. … You can’t chase a zero in an inning until you execute the first pitch, and then keep going like that. And I think that right now you can see that they’re kind of trying a little too hard.”
On Wednesday night, however, Snell made their job easy.
Efficient from the start with the kind of aggressive, attacking game plan he had acknowledged was missing in his last three outings, Snell went to work quickly against the Phillies, retiring the side on eight pitches (and two strikeouts) in the first inning, en route to setting down the first eight batters he faced.
Brief trouble arose in the third, when Bryson Stott and Harrison Bader had back-to-back singles.
But then Snell froze Kyle Schwarber with a curveball, one of the seven punchouts he recorded with the pitch. He had a season-high 12 strikeouts on the night.
And after that, the Phillies didn’t put another runner aboard until the seventh, with Snell breezing through the next 12 batters.
In the meantime, the Dodgers built a lead. Freddie Freeman homered to lead off the second. Ben Rortvedt (starting his third straight game behind the plate, even with Dalton Rushing back from a leg injury) added an RBI single later in the inning, following an Andy Pages hit-and-run single that put runners on the corners.
Another run came around in the fourth, after Pages worked a two-out walk, stole second, took third on a wild pickoff throw and scored on an RBI single from Kiké Hernández (who played third base in place of Max Muncy, who still felt “fuzzy” on Tuesday from a hit-by-pitch he took to the head over the weekend).
And from there, the Dodgers watched Snell cruise, with the $182-million offseason acquisition attacking the corners of the strike zone while also inducing misses on 24 of 54 swings.
The night culminated in the seventh, after walks to Nick Castellanos and Max Kepler drew Roberts out of the dugout. In the bullpen, left-hander Alex Vesia was getting warm. For a brief moment, it appeared the game would be in the hands of the relievers.
Snell had other ideas, signaling Roberts to hurry to the mound in the middle of his walk before seemingly pleading his case to stay in.
Whatever he said, Roberts listened.
Snell stayed on the rubber. A crowd of 50,859 roared in approval.
Against his final batter, Kemp, Snell fell behind, missing low with a changeup before pulling a fastball wide. Undeterred, he went back on the attack, getting one foul ball with a heater on the inner half, then another with a curveball that leaked over the plate. The count was 2-and-2. Chavez Ravine rose to its feet.
The next pitch — Snell’s 112th of the night — was another fastball, this time on the upper, outside corner at 95.3 mph. Kemp swung through it. Snell screamed and pumped his fist. In the dugout, Roberts raised an arm in the air, then began clapping as Snell walked off to a raucous ovation.
The next two innings were refreshingly simple. Alex Vesia retired the side in the top of the eighth. The Dodgers made it a five-run lead by scoring twice in the bottom half of the frame, including on Shohei Ohtani’s 51st home run of the season. Embattled closer Tanner Scott spun a stress-free ninth, pitching three consecutive scoreless outings for the first time since early July.
Come October, that’s the kind of blueprint the Dodgers (who maintained a two-game lead in the National League West over the San Diego Padres) will have to try and replicate.
Their bullpen still needs fixing. Their relief issues aren’t solved. But more gems like Snell’s would certainly help.
PITTSBURGH — Over three nights in Pittsburgh this week, the Dodgers didn’t win a game, despite playing a last-place Pirates club.
They didn’t grow their division lead, despite the second-place San Diego Padres suffering their own three-game sweep.
And, as veteran infielder Miguel Rojas stressed Thursday night, they simply didn’t look like a team capable of sharing in any joy, despite their constant insistence that better play will materialize.
“I feel like ever since we started playing poorly a couple months ago, the pressure and frustration has been building up on the team,” Rojas said.
“We know what we’re capable of. We’re playing under the threshold, the goal that we have. But at the end of the day, we gotta put all that aside … and we have to find some joy and some motivation to come to the ballpark. Not just, ‘I gotta do my job.’ We have to come here and enjoy ourselves around the clubhouse, regardless of the situation.”
The situation, of course, looks bleak, with Thursday’s 5-3 loss to the Pirates sealing a confounding three-game sweep.
“It’s frustrating. It’s embarrassing,” Rojas said. “But we have to be able to turn the page and come tomorrow with a better attitude. … We have to find a way to enjoy the game a little bit more.”
This loss, granted, was the easiest to explain.
In six scoreless innings, Cy Young frontrunner Paul Skenes was his typically dominant self. Already the major-league ERA leader, the second-year right-hander stuck out eight batters, gave up just two hits, escaped his only real threat by stranding a pair of two-out baserunners in the third inning, and otherwise overpowered the Dodgers with a seven-pitch repertoire headlined by his upper-90s mph sidearm fastball.
His counterpart, two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell, was nowhere near top form, giving up five runs in five innings despite largely limiting much hard contact.
The Dodgers (78-62) did finally show some life offensively in the top of the ninth, scoring three times (their first runs since the eighth inning of Tuesday’s game) and putting the tying run on base. But by then, it was too little, too late — with the game ending on a three-pitch strikeout by newly called-up catcher Ben Rortvedt, the latest hair-pulling moment in a season of deflation.
“We’re just not playing good baseball, that’s really it,” Snell said. “We’ve got to figure that out. That’s on us to do that. We’ve got to get it going. It’s crunch time right now. Can’t really have excuses.”
Pirates starting pitcher Paul Skenes delivers against the Dodgers on Thursday.
(Justin Berl / Getty Images)
Indeed, the Dodgers lead the NL West by only two games — having missed a chance to create distance in the standings after the Padres unexpectedly dropped three straight against the Baltimore Orioles earlier in the week.
They also trail the Philadelphia Phillies by three games for a top-two seed in the NL playoff picture, placing themselves in danger of facing a three-game wild-card series rather than a first-round bye.
With 22 games remaining, the Dodgers would have to be perfect the rest of the way to reach the 100-win mark. At this point, even 90 victories feels far from a certainty, given the team’s 4-12 record in their last 16 against teams with losing records.
“I want to say it’s uncharacteristic, but I think we’ve done that a lot,” manager Dave Roberts acknowledged afterward.
And when facing the current best pitcher in the sport, they certainly never seemed poised to change that trend.
Skenes set the tone immediately on what had been a rainy evening in Pittsburgh. Shohei Ohtani struck out on a 99-mph heater in the game’s first at-bat. The next seven Dodgers who came to the plate all recorded outs, flailing at Skenes’ mix of four-seamers, sweepers, curveballs and changeups to allow him to quickly find a comfortable rhythm.
It wasn’t until Dalton Rushing — who started in place of an injured Will Smith, as the team’s starting catcher awaited results on a CT scan for a bruised hand he suffered the night before — hit a third-inning fastball high off the center-field wall for a double that gave the Dodgers their first baserunner. But, after an Ohtani walk, Mookie Betts grounded out to retire that threat.
From there, the only other damage Skenes allowed was a fifth-inning single from Rojas. And though the Dodgers’ ability to at least foul off two-strike pitches — they fought off 15 in all — at least got him out of the game after six innings, it was already too late to mount a comeback.
That’s because, unlike the Dodgers, the last-place Pirates (64-77) actually managed to build rallies against another of the game’s other top pitchers.
Snell’s outing was a grind from the start, with Rushing misfiring to first base for an error in the first inning and Betts reacting slowly to a ground ball at shortstop to extend the second.
Snell worked around those jams. In the third, however, he followed a leadoff single by Bryan Reynolds with a pair of wild pitches that got by Rushing. With Reynolds suddenly on third, and the Dodgers’ infield forced to play in, Tommy Pham slapped a single through the dirt for the night’s opening run.
Dodgers pitcher Blake Snell delivers in the second inning Thursday against the Pirates.
(Justin Berl / Getty Images)
Two innings later, the Pirates broke it open.
In the fifth, Snell gave up three consecutive singles that doubled Pittsburgh’s lead. Then, after an intentional one-out walk to Andrew McCutchen, Nick Yorke went after a first-pitch curveball for a two-run double down the line. McCutchen later scored from third on a grounder.
“It just seemed like today there was some seeing-eye single, balls finding the outfield grass,” Roberts said. “I thought he was good, not great. But again, a little bit unlucky. When you’re facing Paul Skenes, you just can’t afford to give up runs.”
If all that wasn’t enough, the game ended with another regrettable sequence in the ninth. Betts broke up the shutout with a leadoff home run. Singles from Teoscar Hernández, Michael Conforto, Andy Pages and Rojas brought around two more runs with the Dodgers down to their last out.
Then, however, Rortvedt came up as their ill-fated final hope.
A career minor-leaguer whom the Dodgers acquired from the Tampa Bay Rays at the trade deadline, then called up Thursday after Smith took a foul ball off his hand the night before, Rortvedt struck out after having replaced Rushing an inning earlier.
As Roberts explained postgame, he was trying to get Rushing (a rookie who has been a backup this season, but will likely start the next three games as Smith recovers from his bruised hand) off his feet. Given the way the game had gone, he wasn’t expecting Rushing’s spot in the order (which was due up eighth in the ninth inning) to come back up again.
“Obviously, in a separate world, I would’ve loved to have had Dalton up there,” Roberts said. “But when you have three hits through eight [innings] and you’re down 5-0, just kind of trying to figure out how to preserve him for the next few days, too.”
So it goes for the Dodgers right now. Their inconsistent lineup continues to scuffle. Their supposed strength of a rotation hasn’t been able to dominate. And, with their record an incomprehensible 22-30 since July 4, there remains no end in sight to their second-half slide — nor visible signs of anything other than frustration.
“I feel like, as an offense, we’re putting a little bit too much pressure on ourselves, because we feel the necessity of winning. And we’re really forgetting about the most important part, which is playing for each other and having some joy when we play this game,” Rojas said.
“We all know, when you’re losing baseball games it’s not that fun. But I feel like we have to find a way to put everything in perspective. We’re still in first place. We’re still two games ahead of the Padres. We should be able to have some fun while we’re playing the game, and kind of relax a little bit more. Because I think when this team is together like that, we’re really hard to beat.”
TAMPA, Fla. — Blake Snell nearly had a flawless return from the injured list on Saturday afternoon.
If only the Tampa Bay Rays didn’t have slugger Yandy Díaz, or a quirky short right-field wall at their temporary home at Steinbrenner Field.
Making his first start since the second week of the season, when he went down with a shoulder injury that shelved him, Snell largely looked like the ace the Dodgers thought they were getting when they signed him to a $182-million contract this offseason.
Over a five-inning outing that included eight strikeouts, no walks and a whole bunch of flailing swings by the Rays, the veteran left-hander flashed his two-time Cy Young Award-winning stuff and tantalizing late-season potential for this year.
However, in the Dodgers’ 4-0 loss to the Rays, Snell gave up three runs on a pair of long balls to Díaz — who twice took advantage of the ballpark’s short porch in right field.
“I thought, to be quite frank, he was a victim of this ballpark,” manager Dave Roberts said afterward. “There were a couple fly balls to right field that just went out. … Unfortunately, got a little bit of bad luck.”
After the Rays’ permanent home, Tropicana Field in nearby St. Petersburg, had its canvas roof shredded during Hurricane Milton this winter, the club relocated to Steinbrenner Field for this season; using the New York Yankees’ open-air, Tampa-based spring training park for its home schedule.
Since the 10,000-seat venue was modeled after Yankee Stadium in New York, its defining feature is a short right-field wall (similar to the one in the Bronx) that measures at just 314 feet down the line — eight feet shorter than the dimensions at Tropicana Field.
In the bottom of the first inning, Díaz took full advantage, golfing a 3-1 fastball the other way for a solo home run. According to MLB’s Statcast system, the ball traveled only 326 feet, and would have stayed in play at each of the league’s other 29 stadiums. But not here, and especially not on a sweltering summer afternoon with a first-pitch temperature of 91 degrees.
“I was surprised,” Roberts said of watching Díaz’s ball land in the first row of seats.
“They took advantage of the field,” added right fielder Teoscar Hernández.
Indeed, Díaz repeated the act two innings later; snapping the groove Snell had settled into after retiring seven of the next eight batters, including five on strikeouts.
On a 1-1 fastball that was up in the zone, Díaz launched one to the opposite field again, hitting a two-run blast on a 341-foot fly ball that would’ve been a homer in only two other parks (Yankee Stadium, and Daikin Park in Houston).
“The first homer to Yandy, that was not a good pitch,” Snell said. “On the second homer, I thought that was a really good pitch to him, and it was. Just a good result for him.”
Still, on the whole, Snell offered plenty of promise in his return to action Saturday.
First and foremost, he filled up the strike zone, eliminating his habit of nibbling around the plate by throwing 57 strikes in 86 pitches.
“I was in the zone more than I thought I would’ve been,” he said. “You’re just trying to feel it out again, so I like that.”
And, in another positive development, many of those strikes were of the swing-and-miss variety.
Snell racked up 19 total whiffs, tied for third-most by a Dodgers pitcher in a game this season. Seven came on 12 total swings against his changeup, a key offspeed pitch that showed no signs of rust after his four-month layoff. Five more were courtesy of his slider, with the Rays coming up empty on all five swings against it.
“I was in the zone, I was confident, I knew what I wanted to do,” Snell said. “Overall, first start back, emotions, there’s a lot that I’m dealing with to get better. … But definitely something to build on, learn from.”
In the big picture, after all, the Dodgers’ main priorities for Snell are: 1) Stay healthy; 2) Pitch better than he did at the start of the season, when his bothersome shoulder contributed to two underwhelming outings that marred the beginning of his Dodgers career.
Tampa Bay’s Yandy Díaz watches his solo home run off Dodgers pitcher Blake Snell during the first inning Saturday.
(Chris O’Meara / Associated Press)
Down the stretch this season, the Dodgers’ biggest strength might be their rotation. Yoshinobu Yamamoto is in the Cy Young Award conversation. Tyler Glasnow has looked improved since returning from his own shoulder injury. Shohei Ohtani has quickly rediscovered his premium stuff coming off a second career Tommy John procedure. And even Clayton Kershaw has been productive in his 18th season.
The biggest linchpin, though, likely remains Snell — whom the Dodgers targeted this offseason in hopes of avoiding the tightrope they walked last October, when their injury-ravaged rotation was almost completely depleted by the start of the postseason.
“Last year, we found a way to do it, not having that [rotation depth],” Roberts said. “But having the starters healthy, pitching the way they’re capable of, makes it a better quality of life for everyone.”
While the Dodgers had managed in Snell’s absence, maintaining a narrow lead in the National League West despite another prolonged stretch of patchwork pitching, Roberts acknowledged they had missed his “presence” over the first two-thirds of the season.
And after watching from afar how well Snell finished last year — when he rebounded from another extended early-season IL stint with the San Francisco Giants by posting a 1.23 ERA over his last 12 starts, including his first no-hitter exactly one year ago Saturday — Roberts was hopeful the 32-year-old could mount a similar “heater” now.
“He’s really focused,” Roberts said. “I love where his head’s at.”
The results on Saturday might not have been enough to compensate for the Dodgers’ quiet day at the plate — with their lineup managing only six hits and squandering its best opportunity to rally on Hernández’s bases-loaded, inning-ending double-play grounder in the top of the sixth.
But it nonetheless raised hopes about the potential of the team’s late-season rotation, offering a long-awaited glimpse of the kind of dominance Snell could provide to the Dodgers’ push to defend their World Series championship.
“I thought Blake threw the baseball really well today,” Roberts said. “Just kind of seeing him out there, competing, making pitches, it just makes you feel better going forward.”
The most important pitches for the Dodgers on Tuesday came long before the start of their game that night.
In the second of a key three-game series against the San Diego Padres, the Dodgers found themselves in an uncomfortably familiar position: Lacking an available starting pitcher amid a wave of early-season injuries, and turning instead to a collection of minor league arms thrust into big league duty; set to open the game with Lou Trivino, and then have Matt Sauer pitch bulk innings.
It’s not what the Dodgers envisioned entering the year, when they expected to have a rotation of potential All-Stars on the mound every day.
It was eerily similar to the circumstances they faced last October –– their Game 4, elimination-staving win against the Padres in last year’s National League Division Series, specifically.
Earlier Tuesday, however, the Dodgers had reasons for optimism: These current circumstances might not last much longer.
For the first time in a while, they could start to see light at the end of the pitching tunnel.
On the Petco Park mound, Ohtani threw the third live batting practice in his continued recovery from a 2023 Tommy John surgery, hurling 44 pitches over three simulated innings while racking up six strikeouts against a pair of rookie league hitters from the organization.
Back in Los Angeles, Glasnow threw the third bullpen session of his recovery from a shoulder inflammation injury, and could be getting close to facing live hitters himself in the near future.
And after Ohtani finished his session in San Diego, Snell threw 15 pitches in the bullpen, his first full bullpen session since suffering a setback in his recovery from shoulder inflammation back in April.
“Really encouraging,” manager Dave Roberts said. “You can start to see us get to the other side. It’s stuff to look forward to.”
Ohtani’s live session was the day’s biggest development. He made a significant jump in workload, going from the 29 pitches he threw two weekends ago at Dodger Stadium to a 44-pitch outing Tuesday that concluded with 23 throws in his third and final inning. But, after battling poor command in his previous live BP, he showed increased consistency and sharpness with all of his pitches, giving up just a ground-ball single and a lone walk while including 15 swings-and-misses with a variety of offerings.
“It wasn’t just pure power and velocity,” pitching coach Mark Prior said of Ohtani, whose fastball averaged around 94-96 mph. “He got some swing-and-misses on his off-speed pitches. He’s being able to keep guys off balance and mess up their timing. There’s different types of misses. I think from that standpoint, those are good things.”
Roberts came away so encouraged, he even hinted at a more optimistic timeline for when Ohtani –– who hasn’t pitched in a big league game since August 2023 –– might be able to join the team’s active rotation, saying the chances are “north of zero” that the right-hander could return before the All-Star break.
In recent weeks, Roberts had said Ohtani wouldn’t be back until after the Midsummer Classic.
“It’s tempting,” Roberts said. “I’m sure Shohei feels tempted to just kind of rip the Band-Aid off and get into a big league game. But I think we’re doing a good job of being patient. And truth be told, I don’t think anyone knows the right time to get him in a big league game. We’re still being very careful, I guess.”
Another notable development from Roberts on Tuesday: Ohtani might not have to complete “a full build-up” before pitching in big league games.
“Anything he can give us is certainly additive,” Roberts said, an idea underscored by Ohtani’s two-way player status, which would effectively make him an extra arm on the Dodgers’ staff without counting against their 13-pitcher roster max.
“I still stand by him, and [head team physician] Dr. [Neal] ElAttrache and the training staff are going to drive this,” said Roberts, who wasn’t sure when Ohtani would throw his next live session. “I’m just anxious for the next one.”
Glasnow and Snell have more steps to complete in their comebacks, from their own live sessions to likely minor league rehab stints.
Prior also noted that those two will have to be more fully built up before they are activated, given the already overworked state of the Dodgers’ bullpen.
Still, Snell said after two months of lingering shoulder pain earlier this year, the breakthrough he has experienced in the last two weeks has renewed his confidence about how he’ll perform when he returns.
“I’m very excited,” he said after throwing at about 70% intensity level in his 15-pitch bullpen. “After this ‘pen, the ramp up is gonna start, and I can start pitching, and I know I’m gonna be a factor on the team again.”
Prior offered similar encouragement with Glasnow’s recent work, noting his fastball is up to 95-96 mph.
“Everything looks good,” Prior said of Glasnow. “He really has been feeling good and the ball has been coming out really good.”
In the meantime, the Dodgers will have to continue to tread water. They currently have only four healthy starters in the rotation between Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Clayton Kershaw, Dustin May and Justin Wrobleski. And though Emmet Sheehan could be an option to return from his own Tommy John surgery after one more start in his minor league rehab next week, the recent loss of Tony Gonsolin –– and continued absence of Roki Sasaki, who has yet to progress past light catch play –– has only further limited the club’s pitching options.
That’s why, even on a day the Dodgers were patching together a pitching plan once again, they were finally feeling hopeful about the long-term state of their staff.
Ohtani, Snell and Glasnow are finally making strides toward returning.
The star-studded pitching staff the club had been planning for this season might soon become a reality once again.
