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Showtime met Sho-Time on Saturday night, the Dodgers honoring several members of the Lakers teams that won five NBA titles from 1980 to ’88 before the game and treating Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, James Worthy and the gang to another clutch Shohei Ohtani home run in the middle innings.
But unlike Friday night, when Ohtani hit a walk-off grand slam to become the sixth member of baseball’s exclusive 40-homer, 40 stolen-base club, there would be no late-game heroics for the Dodgers slugger.
Ohtani turned a one-run deficit into a one-run lead with a 338-foot chip shot over the short wall in right field in the fifth inning, but his towering drive to right with the automatic runner aboard in the 10th fell just short of the warning track, and the Dodgers lost to the Tampa Bay Rays 9-8 in front of a crowd of 48,488 in Chavez Ravine.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
“Yeah, I did,” manager Dave Roberts said, when asked if he thought Ohtani’s drive off Rays left-hander Garrett Cleavinger had a chance to leave the park. “We’ve seen Cleavinger, we’ve had him, and he’s a tough at-bat for a lefty. I was hoping he got just enough of it, but he still took a good swing.”
The game did not start or end well for the Dodgers, who had their five-game win streak snapped and saw their National League West lead over the Arizona Diamondbacks reduced to three games.
Clayton Kershaw got roughed up for four runs and four hits in a 32-pitch first inning, which was capped by Jonny DeLuca’s two-run single, and relievers Michael Kopech, Evan Phillips and Joe Kelly combined to give up four runs and five hits, including two homers, over the final three innings.
How special is Shohei Ohtani? No other player in baseball history joined the exclusive 40-40 club by reaching both milestones in the same game.
Kershaw recovered from his wobbly first to blank the Rays on three hits over the second, third and fourth innings, but he gave up another run in the fifth to close out a five-inning, nine-hit, five-run, five-strikeout, two-walk start.
“Yeah, that first inning can’t happen,” Kershaw said. “Get behind that much that early, it’s tough to come back from. But our team showed what they can do tonight. They came back and battled. I can’t say enough good things about what these guys did offensively.”
The Dodgers trimmed a 4-0 deficit to 4-3 in the fourth when Ohtani reached on catcher’s interference, Mookie Betts hit an RBI double to left, and Teoscar Hernández drove a two-run homer to center, his 27th of the season and first since Aug. 10.
They scored three more in the fifth for a 6-5 lead when Max Muncy blooped a double to left, Miguel Rojas hit an RBI single to left, and Ohtani poked a 92-mph split-fingered fastball on the outer half from Rays right-hander Taj Bradley into the first row near the right-field foul pole for the shortest homer of his seven-year career.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
“That was good hitting in the sense of, it wasn’t a fastball, it was down below the zone, and he didn’t come out of his swing,” Roberts said of Ohtani’s NL-leading 41st homer. “He stayed square and was able to get enough behind it to keep it fair and hit it out of the ballpark.”
Dodgers reliever Ryan Brasier retired the side in order in the sixth, and Blake Treinen survived a scoreless seventh with the help of Rojas, the shortstop who made a diving stop on a Junior Caminero grounder to the hole and threw to third to nail Brandon Lowe, who had doubled to open the inning, for the first out.
Rojas lined a solo homer to left for a 7-5 lead in the bottom of the seventh, but the Rays pulled to within 7-6 in the top of the eighth with a run off Kopech, snapping the right-hander’s 10⅓-inning scoreless streak since his July 29 trade from the Chicago White Sox.
Tampa Bay loaded the bases with no outs on Josh Lowe’s single, Jose Caballero’s double and Alex Jackson’s walk. Yandy Diaz hit a sacrifice fly to deep left to score Lowe, but Jackson was thrown out trying to advance to second by Hernández. Brandon Lowe popped out to shortstop to end the inning.
Tampa Bay’s Jose Caballero, left, celebrates with teammates after hitting a two-run home run off Dodgers reliever Joe Kelly in the 10th inning Saturday.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
The Rays tied the score 7-7 in the top of the ninth on Caminero’s leadoff homer to center off Phillips, who had recovered from a rocky July to give up no earned runs in 8⅓ innings of his first 10 games in August. Phillips struck out the next three batters to keep the Dodgers even.
With one out in the top of the 10th, Kelly grooved an 89.5-mph slider to Caballero, who crushed a two-run homer to left-center for a 9-7 lead. The Dodgers scored in the bottom of the 10th on Betts’ sacrifice fly to center, but Cleavinger got Freddie Freeman to ground out to second to end the game.
Kelly, the hard-throwing right-hander, had recovered from a shaky start to August with three hitless innings in his previous three games, but he gave up the homer and a double to Ben Rortvedt in the 10th inning Saturday.
“His last [three appearances] were great, efficient, strike-throwing,” Roberts said of Kelly. “Today, he got the first out and left a slider middle-middle that was hit for a homer. … As far as inconsistencies, I just don’t know the answer. Sometimes he’s lights out, and other times he labors. It’s something we’ve got to dig into.”
The Dodgers parting ways with Jason Heyward has been tough on the team because he is close friends with Freddie Freeman and well-liked in the clubhouse.
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Slow go for Glasnow
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
When Tyler Glasnow was placed on the injured list because of elbow tendinitis in St. Louis last weekend, the right-hander was confident he would be able to return when his 15-day IL stint was up, or shortly thereafter. That will not be the case. Not even close.
Glasnow played catch for the first time since going on the IL on Saturday, but he got out to only 60 feet. Roberts said Glasnow will need to progress to 90 feet, 120 feet “and beyond,” and then to a bullpen mound before throwing a simulated game or making a minor league rehabilitation start.
“I think it’s going to be a slower process than we all anticipated initially,” Roberts said. “The hope is that he’ll be back before the end of the regular season.”
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Hey Siri!
Rays center fielder Jose Siri, who threw the ball that Ohtani hit for a walk-off grand slam Friday night back into the right-field bleachers, said through an interpreter that he “had no idea” the homer was Ohtani’s 40th of the season, moving the slugger into the exclusive 40-40 club.
“We just got walked off,” Siri said before Saturday night’s game. “I threw it to a fan.”
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Short hops
Ohtani’s rehabilitation from a second major elbow surgery progressed to a bullpen mound for the first time, the right-hander throwing 10 pitches before the game. The Dodgers have insisted that Ohtani will not pitch in any capacity this season, but he is on course to return as a two-way player next year.
