Shohei Ohtani pitched a season-high seven innings on Tuesday night but the Los Angeles Dodgers offense reverted back to their recent struggles, resulting in a 2-1 loss to the Houston Astros.
Ohtani was ultimately done in by allowing a pair of solo home runs in an otherwise encouraging outing. He was limited to only pitching for a third time in six starts this season.
Miguel Rojas defends Shohei Ohtani
One reason Dodgers manager Dave Roberts decided against having Ohtani in the lineup was in looking to alleviate some of the workload that’s been placed on the two-way star. Roberts believes Ohtani’s slow start to the season is partly tied to the physical demands of also being a starting pitcher.
While Ohtani has taken on plenty of external criticism and been the subject of myriad questions, Miguel Rojas put blame on himself and the rest of the Dodgers lineup, per Bill Plunkett of the Southern California News Group.
“He’s doing his job. He’s pitching, he’s doing everything he can to help the team win. And we as an offense need to find ways to score runs for him,” infielder Miguel Rojas said. “It’s not because he’s not in the lineup that we’re not scoring runs. He’s just focusing on pitching on those days. It’s really hard to do what he’s doing. He’s taking the ball every five or six days, and he’s doing what he’s supposed to do to win the game.
“So it’s on us. And we have plenty of hitters in this lineup that can get the job done. We haven’t been able to do it the last couple starts. But we’re looking forward to do it the next 20 starts.”
The Dodgers went 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position and left eight men on base. Rojas was at the center of one particularly costly at-bat as he grounded out with the bases loaded to end the fourth inning. He also was responsible for hitting into the Dodgers’ only double play of the night.
Those two at-bats were instrumental to Astros starter Peter Lambert navigating his way through seven scoreless innings despite allowing three hits and walking four batters.
Meanwhile, Ohtani has now taken the loss in back-to-back starts that both ended in 2-1 final scores. The Dodgers failed to get on the scoreboard Tuesday night until Kyle Tucker’s RBI single with two outs in the eighth inning.
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