Shohei Ohtani allowed four runs for a second consecutive game but got back to winning ways as a starter after the Los Angeles Dodgers won 5-4 against the Tampa Bay Rays on Wednesday, completing the series sweep.
Ohtani was dealing with left knee soreness, which caused him to miss a game as a hitter last Friday. During his start, he also suffered a blister on his right middle finger. Despite being slightly unwell, he delivered four scoreless innings.
In the top fifth, the Rays scored four runs and five hits in 26 pitches, taking a 4-2 lead.
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“It’s just really that inning, that fifth inning, that I wasn’t really too pleased,” Ohtani told Sportsnet LA, “but aside from that the stuff was good and I felt pretty good overall.”
The Dodgers got back within a run of their opponents in the bottom half of the inning, with a bases-loaded walk from Kyle Tucker, which drove in Freddie Freeman. Ohtani came back to the mound and retired the three Rays batters for a clinical sixth.
He finished with six innings of work, earning four runs, his highest of the season, on seven hits and one walk with five strikeouts. The Dodgers would go ahead in the bottom of the sixth through a Freeman two-run go-ahead homer before the bullpen closed it out for the win.
“Just part of the game,” Ohtani said. “There’s not a lot of situations where you feel 100%, so I just took it as that. It’s big that we were able to win a game like this.”
Ohtani’s ERA has slipped to 1.47 as a result of his previous two starts. Last week, he allowed four runs and earned three in a no-decision against the Pittsburgh Pirates. He is now behind Milwaukee Brewers’ Jacob Misiorowski, who has a 1.34 ERA, for Major Leaguers who have pitched at least 50 innings
Dave Roberts explains decision to send out Shohei Ohtani to hit
Shohei Ohtani’s residual knee soreness kept him out of the lineup on Wednesday. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts inserted him into the game in the sixth inning with Ohtani hitting for Miguel Rojas, with the Dodgers trailing 4-3 at the start of the inning before the Freeman bomb. He grounded out on the first pitch.
“I talked to [Ohtani], and he said he felt really comfortable about taking the at-bat,” Roberts said after the game. “If we were ahead, would I have fired that bullet? Probably less likely, but again, there isn’t much cost if he feels like he can take the at-bat, whether you’re up one or down one, or whatever.”
Ohtani’s at-bat came on the heels of a superlative stretch at the plate, where he is hitting .367 with five home runs and nine RBIs in his last nine games.
Edited by R. Nikhil Parshy
