If this were the regular season and the Dodgers had already clinched the Western League title, they might have given Shohei Ohtani a day off Friday night to help him out given his six hits, three homers, two doubles and 10 RBIs in Thursday’s game in Miami and make him a founding member of baseball’s 50-homer, 50-stolen-base club.
But this isn’t the regular season, not with the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks, two of baseball’s hottest teams since the All-Star break, heading into the long weekend, so Ohtani is in the lineup for the series opener against last-place Colorado Rockies.
“There are no days off right now,” manager Dave Roberts said before the game. “We had a champagne toast (Thursday to celebrate a playoff-clinching win). We’re late. We’ve got to win baseball games. We’ve still got people on our heels and I want our guys to stay hungry.”
This isn’t a problem for Ohtani, who isn’t getting enough at the plate. The slugger hit his NL-leading 52nd homer of the season in the fifth inning, turning a one-run deficit into a one-run lead, and he hit his 52nd homer in the seventh, part of a three-hit night that helped propel the Dodgers to A’s. 6-4 victory in Chavez Canyon.
The Dodgers (92-62) lowered their magic number to clinch their 11th division title in 12 years with five to eight games remaining. They remain four games ahead of the San Diego Padres and 5½ games ahead of the Arizona Diamondbacks. in the National League West.
The Dodgers trailed 2-0 when Andy Paez led off the bottom of the fifth with a 407-foot home run off Rockies left fielder Kyle Freeland to cut the lead to 2-1.
Max Muncie doubled to left-center with one out, and after Quique Hernandez grounded out, Ohtani connected on a 92 mph fastball that sailed 423 feet over the center-field wall outside the strike zone for a 3-2 lead.
Sam Hilliard’s two-run homer off Alex Vecia tied Colorado at 3-3 in the top of the sixth, but Teoscar Hernandez hit his 30th homer of the season to take a 4-3 lead and the Dodgers pulled away in the bottom of the sixth. They rallied for two more runs in the seventh for a 6-3 lead.
Pinch-hitter Tommy Edman sparked the seventh-inning comeback with a single off reliever Jayden Hill. Edman stole second, took third on Ohtani’s infield single and scored on Mookie Betts’ sacrifice fly to center field. Ohtani took third on an error and scored on Teoscar Hernandez’s RBI single for a 6-3 lead.
Evan Phillips retired the order in the seventh and Blake Treinen pitched a one-two-three in the ninth as part of a Dodgers bullpen performance. Michael Kopech allowed a home run to Michael Toglia in the ninth before retiring the next three batters for the save.
Dodgers right fielder Mookie Betts hits a home run against the Colorado Rockies in the first inning on Friday.
(Valley Scalridge/Los Angeles Times)
The game began with a web-slinging gem from Betts, the Dodgers right fielder racing to the wall to line Charlie Blackmon’s leadoff drive as the Rockies’ leadoff hitter circled the bases thinking he’d hit a home run.
Betts stepped down to the warning track and stood still as Blackmon rounded third and headed for home. Only after Paige, the Dodgers’ center fielder, helped him up did Betts pull the ball out of his glove and throw it back into the infield.
Ohtani was introduced at the end of the first but with chants of “MVP! MVP!” chanted around the stadium, Ohtani struck out and began a four-inning frame in which the Dodgers managed just two singles from Freeland.
The Dodgers, using the bullpen, got a scoreless first inning from Ryan Brazier and a scoreless third and fourth from Brusdar Graterol, but Colorado scored on Hunter Goodman’s RBI hit off Joe Kelly in the second inning and Blackmon’s two-out homer for a 2-0 leadoff single off Daniel Hudson in the fifth.
Recovery report
Clayton Kershaw threw a 32-pitch bullpen session on Friday, just two days after throwing 80 pitches out of a bullpen in Miami, but that doesn’t necessarily mean the veteran lefty is on the verge of a comeback from a toe injury that has sidelined him since Sept. 1.
“The most important part is getting healthy, which he’s not yet,” Roberts said of the toe. “The other part is holding his arm so he doesn’t lose his strength. The last part is performance, and that’s hard to do when you’re not working with a full rig. He’s doing everything he can and he’s getting better and better. He’s feeling better and better every day.”
Reliever Anthony Banda, who suffered a fractured left hand when he hit what the team called a “hard pitch” after allowing two runs in a Sept. 9 game against the Chicago Cubs on his backhand, threw a bullpen session Thursday and another bullpen workout is scheduled for this weekend.
“The velocity was good (on Thursday) and he throws another one using his slider,” Roberts said of Banda, a left-hander who is 2-2 with a 3.23 ERA in 46 games. “He has to be ready to go the day he comes off the injured list.”
