The Los Angeles Dodgers have not played quality baseball as of late and entered tonight on a four-game losing streak. But instead of fighting off a sweep, they still had a chance to split the series against the San Francisco Giants thanks to the four-game matchup.
And the Dodgers moved closer to doing so by ending their losing streak and setting up a chance to finish off their homestand with a two-game winning streak.
Dodgers 4, Giants 0: key takeaways
Shohei Ohtani & bullpen shut down Giants
Ohtani turned in an excellent start, and perhaps his best since signing with the Dodgers. The right-hander threw seven shutout innings, allowing just four hits while striking out eight and walking two.
At one point, he retired six straight hitters, and then followed that up with a stretch of retiring eight straight. The first streak was ended by a walk, and the second by a single.
Ohtani was not in the lineup so he could focus on pitching and get some extra rest, and he’ll get another day off tomorrow. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts is hoping Ohtani can reset and get enough rest, as he’s seen fatigue take a toll on him at the plate.
However, any fatigue hasn’t affected Ohtani on the mound as he now owns a 0.82 ERA over 44 innings with 50 strikeouts and a 0.82 WHIP.
After Ohtani exited, Tanner Scott pitched a scoreless eighth inning and Kyle Hurt shut it down in the ninth.
Dodgers offense shows some power
The Dodgers’ offense didn’t explode for a ton of runs, but they did some of the things they hadn’t in previous games, which was encouraging to see.
Surprisingly, the scoring was started by a home run from Santiago Espinal in the third inning for his first of the season and first since the 2024 season. That was then followed by Mookie Betts crushing a homer of his own to make it back-to-back and put the Dodgers up 2-0.
The Dodgers have not hit many homers as of late, so seeing them get two from hitters who don’t hit many of them was a huge positive for the struggling offense.
They added on two more runs in the fourth inning, started by a bloop single from Teoscar Hernández to drive in Kyle Tucker, who reached on a leadoff double. A passed ball moved Hernández into scoring position, and he advanced to third on a single from Miguel Rojas before scoring on a sacrifice fly from Alex Call.
That was all for the Dodgers in the game, but the combination of home runs and picking up some hits with runners in scoring position is something they haven’t done much of recently. That proved to be enough as the pitching did their job.
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