Steve Webb
ANAHEIM, CA — It has been a truth universally acknowledged that Shohei Ohtani is a once-in-a-lifetime talent. In addition to hitting mammoth homers at the plate, the guy can pinpoint a 100-mph fastball from the mound. And on Wednesday night, he did the second part of the equation as advertised, striking out twelve Dodgers in seven innings of five-hit ball. Unfortunately for Ohtani, one of those hits was Freddie Freeman‘s 14th home run of the year, which proved to be enough to lift the Dodgers to a second straight 2-0 shut-out victory over the Halos.
The much maligned pen went nine nearly perfect innings at the Big A on Wednesday. Dave Roberts and Mark Prior came in with a plan for a bullpen game and the Dodgers’ relievers executed it to perfection. Brusdar Graterol opened with two scoreless frames. Followed by Victor Gonzalez, Yency Almonte, Alex Vesia, and new Dodger Ryan Brasier, who got the Dodgers into the late innings while surrendering only two hits along the way. That set the stage for the same 1-2 punch as Tuesday to close out the game: Caleb Ferguson in the eighth and Evan Phillips in the ninth. Ferguson walked one, but the runner was erased on a double play. Phillips was perfect to secure his second save in as many nights.
Other than the Freeman blast the Dodgers didn’t get much going against Ohtani, but they did get one extra run of insurance when Miguel Verdugo smacked a homer off the right field scoreboard in the top of the ninth, giving Phillips a bit of unneeded wiggle room in the final frame. Phillips faced three of the Halos’ best hitters: Shohei Ohtani, Mike Trout, and Brandon Drury in the inning, but made short work of the lot of them. He struck out Trout swinging and got a couple of fly ball outs from the other two, and that was it. Two straight shutouts from a team that gave up fifteen runs to the Giants a couple of days earlier. Wow.
“Any time you’re talking about the bullpen, it’s like a relay race, it’s pass the baton to the next guy,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts after the game. “They’re really tight. And so when one guy is scuffling, you can sense that they’re all feeling it. And conversely, when one guy is doing well, throws a good inning, then the next guy wants to do the same thing. So tonight was picture perfect.”
“Guys have been grinding,” Caleb Ferguson admitted. “I don’t really think it’s been as far off as it looks. Just a couple better pitches here, couple better pitches there and things are a lot different. But kudos to everybody for putting their head down and keeping grinding. Just continuing to get through the rough patch.”
Let’s hope that rough patch is starting to recede into the rearview mirror a bit from here on out. The Dodgers get to meet our old “friends,” the Houston Astros this weekend at the Ravine. Emmet Sheehan, Bobby Miller, and Tony Gonsolin will get the call for the Dodgers. They’ll face off against three lesser known Astros pitchers: J.P. France, Ronel Blanco, and Hunter Brown. It’s bound to be lit, one way or the other. See you at Dodger Stadium!
