Wednesday for all intents and purposes was Shohei Ohtani Day at Dodger Stadium, but his two-way prowess was all for naught as the Los Angeles Dodgers lost 5-3 to the St. Louis Cardinals in the series rubber match.
Thousands of fans arrived hours before first pitch as they coveted the Ohtani World Series ring giveaway, and after receiving the replica hardware, they were treated to an all-encompassing performance.
Ohtani set season-highs with eight strikeouts, 54 pitches and four innings. Those marks previously had been five, 51 and three, respectively.
He was aided by Alex Call making a catch while going into the wall in left field to begin the game, which was followed by Andy Pages making a running grab in the gap.
Though, Miguel Rojas lost a pop-up in the sun and it resulted in a leadoff single for Jordan Walker in the third inning. He later came around to score on Brendan Donovan’s two-out bunt single that gave the Cardinals a 1-0 lead.
It wound up being short-lived, as Ohtani put the Dodgers ahead by helping himself with a two-run home run. The opposite-field blast was Ohtani’s 1,000th hit of his MLB career. He joined Ichiro Suzuki (3,089 career hits) and Hideki Matsui (1,253) as the only Japanese-born players to achieve that feat.
In the fourth inning, Rojas found himself on the other side of an unfortunate moment in the game. Andy Pages moved into scoring position on a wild pitch after his leadoff single, and he scored after stealing third base due to Pedro Pagés’ throw ricocheting off Rojas’ bat and rolling to the backstop.
Justin Wrobleski pitched through traffic for the majority of his three innings, allowing just one run to keep the Dodgers ahead.
Dodgers’ error leads to loss
Similar to Wrobleski, Alex Vesia wasn’t overly sharp and found himself immediately pitching with runners on. The Cardinals tied the game on Walker’s two-out RBI single in the seventh inning and took the lead when Alex Freeland fielded the throw in and made an ill-advised attempt to get an out at second base.
Lars Nootbaar added an RBI double off Brock Stewart in the ninth inning to provide the Cardinals with some breathing room.
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