LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers are just about whole again.
Shohei Ohtani returned to their lineup after two weeks on the injured list and went 1 for 4 with a single and a walk. One night after Andy Pages and Roki Sasaki returned, the Dodgers are slowly emptying their IL with relief pitcher Edgardo Henriquez not eligible until the postseason and backup catcher Dalton Rushing possibly back this weekend.
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But they still need one – win or an Atlanta Braves’ loss – to clinch a first-round bye for the National League playoffs after losing to the San Diego Padres, 5-1, on Wednesday night.
They saw what they wanted to see from Ohtani in only his second game in three weeks – he looked healthy again, not the compromised version who tried to play through increasingly troublesome knee and biceps pain.
Ohtani singled in his first at-bat off of Padres left-hander Robbie Ray, sending a 99 mph dart into right field.
He walked in his next time up, taking the count from 1-and-2 to full before reaching base. Ohtani seemed to rediscover patience during his time as a spectator. He saw 18 pitches in his first three plate appearances Wednesday.
Before Wednesday’s game, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts praised Yoshinobu Yamamoto for his dependability and consistency this season, saying the right-hander only had “one or two clunkers” among his starts this season.
Then he went out and added to that total.
An overturned call went against the Dodgers when a replay review determined Yamamoto had hit Dustin Harris with a pitch, leading off the fourth inning. Yamamoto’s next pitch was a sinker to Manny Machado that didn’t sink – not until it reached the re-entry phase of its 409-foot journey over the wall in straightaway center field.
Machado’s two-run home run put the Padres in the lead. They scored again in less bombastic fashion an inning later.
Two singles put runners on with no outs. Harris tried bunting them over but dropped a poor bunt that Yamamoto fielded in front of the mound with time to get the lead runner at third base. But his throw was wide of the base and went past Max Muncy. One run scored on the error. Another scored when Machado followed with a sacrifice fly.
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It was only the sixth time in 28 starts this season that Yamamoto gave up as many as four runs. His four strikeouts were his lowest total in eight starts since Aug. 1.
Ohtani’s third plate appearance came in the fourth inning with the game just 2-0.
A broken-bat single to first base when Ray was slow to cover first was followed by two soft singles to center field, loading the bases with no outs. Two fly balls scored just one run, but a walk of Mookie Betts loaded the bases for Ohtani.
He worked the count in his favor at 3-and-1 and took a pitch high and away. Home plate umpire Ryan Addison called it a ball, sending Ohtani to first base and the tying run home. But the Padres challenged the call and ABS showed it nipped the strike zone.
With the count now full, Ohtani fouled off two more pitches before swinging and missing at a 98.5 mph fastball from Padres reliever David Morgan, stranding the bases full and leaving the Dodgers trailing.
The Dodgers got a leadoff double from Pages in the sixth (one of his three hits in the game) but didn’t advance him. The closest they came to scoring the rest of the night might have been in Ohtani’s fourth plate appearance. Leading off the seventh inning, he sent a fly ball 384 feet to the warning track in center field where Jackson Merrill caught it.
The Dodgers turned 15 baserunners (10 hits, five walks) into just one run, going 1 for 9 with runners in scoring position and stranding 12 runners on base.
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More to come on this story.