Dodgers Recap: Pitchers “walk” between the raindrops to get a win over Giants

CHAVEZ RAVINE — At Dodger Stadium on Thursday night, the Dodgers won one of the strangest, most satisfying nail-biters of the season, outlasting the Giants 2–1 in a game defined by traffic, tension, and almost no contact. Los Angeles pitchers issued 10 walks yet yielded just one hit, becoming (per team notes) the first club in 48 years to surrender double-digit free passes while allowing a single knock. Weird? Absolutely. Worth it for a W? Even more so.

The headliner was Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who embodied the box score’s contradictions. The right-hander was wild but nearly untouchable: 5.1 scoreless innings, one hit, seven strikeouts, and six walks on 108 pitches (60 strikes). He pitched like a man threading a needle in an earthquake, missing arm-side enough to put constant stress on himself, then snapping off the pitch he needed when it mattered. In the first inning, two walks set up a two-on, two-out jam; Yamamoto blew a fastball past Bryce Eldridge to escape. The second brought the Giants’ lone hit—a grounder from Patrick Bailey—yet Yamamoto stranded him with a popout. By the fourth and fifth, the pattern was unmistakable: a walk here, a deep count there, and then a strikeout or routine grounder to end it.

Credit Logan Webb for matching zeroes while Yamamoto danced on the wire. The former All-Star silenced the Dodgers’ bats through five innings, living at the knees and trusting his infield. His sinker-slider mix produced a string of soft contact: groundouts from Teoscar Hernández and Andy Pages, a fly ball off Freddie Freeman’s bat that died in left. Webb’s line—7.0 innings, five strikeouts, two runs (one earned)—tells you how sharp he was. For much of the night, it felt like the Dodgers would need a bouncer off a bag or a misplay to break through.

They got a spark instead from Shohei Ohtani, who produced the two most emphatic swings of the game. In the sixth, after Miguel Rojas opened with a single and Ben Rortvedt bunted into a force, Ohtani hammered a 107.8 mph rocket to right for a double, moving Rortvedt to third and flipping the inning’s leverage. Mookie Betts followed with a high-chop fielder’s choice that turned chaotic when shortstop Willy Adames’ feed brought Bailey into an awkward catch attempt. The ball clanked off the catcher’s mitt, Rortvedt scored, and the Dodgers finally led, 1–0. Freeman immediately cashed in the extra out with a sharp RBI single to center, plating Ohtani for a 2–0 cushion.

Yamamoto’s night ended in the sixth after a leadoff walk and stolen base by Adames. Jack Dreyer entered with the go-ahead run at the plate and calmly posted two outs—an authoritative lineout to right and a strikeout—to preserve the lead. That mid-inning bridge proved pivotal because the seventh tested the Dodgers’ fraying bullpen nerves again. Michael Kopech walked the first two hitters and spiked a wild pitch to move both into scoring position. Blake Treinen took over and walked two more, forcing home a run to make it 2–1. Then, with the bases loaded and the count running hot, he bore down to strike out Adames and Matt Chapman in succession, preserving the edge with two massive punchouts.

From there, the relief corps steadied. Anthony Banda, who has been a quiet stabilizer for Dave Roberts, put up a clean eighth on 12 pitches, carving through the heart of the order with a groundout and two quick outs. That set the table for Alex Vesia’s sprint-finish in the ninth. Vesia struck out pinch-hitters Christian Koss and Jerar Encarnación, then induced a sharp liner from Heliot Ramos that found newly inserted left fielder Alex Call. Ballgame. Save No. 5 for Vesia, handshakes all around.

The offense didn’t add on after the sixth, but there were chances. Ohtani laced his second double of the night in the eighth—this one to dead-center—before the Dodgers tried to manufacture a tack-on with a tag-up that died in Jung Hoo Lee’s glove. Still, Ohtani’s two doubles (Nos. 23 and 24) were the tone-setters, and Freeman’s RBI single stood up as the winning swing. The Dodgers finished just 1-for-6 with runners in scoring position and left four men on, but in a game dictated by pitching and prevention, the sixth-inning flurry was enough.

Defensively, the Dodgers executed in the margins that decide one-run games. Betts handled a busy night at shortstop, including starting the game with back-to-back outs and later snagging a liner in the eighth. Rortvedt’s exchange and throw in the fourth cut down Chapman’s steal attempt—a huge out once the inning unraveled into a walk-fest. Call’s ninth-inning read and catch locked down the final out.

For the Giants, it was the frustration of constant baserunners with nothing to show. They went 0-for-7 with men in scoring position and stranded nine. Bailey’s single was the only dent in the Dodgers’ hit column, an astonishing footnote given the traffic; their best window came in the seventh when four walks forced in a run, only to see Treinen slam it shut.

So, chalk this one up as a paradox: Yamamoto was wild but effective, the bullpen walked a tightrope after literally walking in a run, and the lineup was mostly quiet aside from a six-batter burst. Yet the Dodgers authored the right plays at the right times—Ohtani’s thunder, Betts’ contact in play, Freeman’s RBI, and the late-inning punchouts—to bank a victory they had to have. Strange, tense, and just enough. That’s September baseball—another weird one, and another win. And with the win, they are now 3.0 games up on the Padres, and their magic number is now six. It’s getting close….

The final series of the 2025 home schedule continues on Friday, with a game that everyone wants to be at, and more people will say that they were years from now: Clayton Kershaw‘s final home start. He will toe the rubber against his familiar nemesis, the San Francisco Giants. He’ll face Robby Ray. But we don’t really care about that, do we? Let’s give Clayton a win!

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