The Dodgers have been waiting on the version of Shohei Ohtani who can carry a game from the mound without costing them anything in the lineup. Wednesday night came close, command wobble and all.
He controlled the night, command and all
Against Colorado on May 27, Ohtani struck out the first hitter he faced, then led off the bottom of the first with a home run, his second leadoff shot in as many starts. He carried a no-hitter through six innings and struck out seven on 99 pitches, dropping his ERA to 0.82.
He fought his command along the way, walking four and plunking a batter. Colorado’s only run off him scored in the fourth, on a groundout after a walk and a hit-by-pitch rather than any hit.
The pitch count carried real weight
Ohtani needed 99 pitches for his six innings, the kind of starter’s workload the Dodgers have wanted from him beyond short, electric bursts. The bullpen extended the no-hit bid: Will Klein and Tanner Scott kept it alive until Tyler Freeman singled with two outs in the eighth, and Kyle Hurt closed out a combined one-hitter for his first career save.
Los Angeles can win nights when Ohtani only hits. The Dodgers turn much harder to plan for when he also covers six innings.
What it asks of the rest of the staff
The Dodgers won 4-1 without straining their relief corps. Every start Ohtani turns into a six-inning bridge lets Los Angeles ease off its middle relief and skip the layered pitching workarounds, and it keeps the rest of the lineup in cleaner roles with no staffing emergency to open the night.
Freddie Freeman homered in the first and Andy Pages added one in the eighth as the Dodgers finished a three-game sweep, their 12th win in 14 games.
The timing, with the roster banged up
Los Angeles has managed injuries all month and lost Teoscar Hernández to a hamstring problem the same night. A genuine two-way Ohtani buys margin while the roster shuffles around him.
The outing also landed in the record books. His 0.82 ERA through nine starts ties Zack Greinke’s 2009 for the third-best mark in the live-ball era, and no player in the modern era had paired a leadoff homer with six-plus no-hit innings in one game. The last Dodger to throw six no-hit innings and homer in the same game was Don Drysdale in 1959.
