The F-bomb said it all.
On a night he pitched six hitless innings against the Colorado Rockies, Shohei Ohtani still was not happy with his stuff.
In the Dodgers’ 4-1 win on Wednesday, the two-way star still did more than enough to complete a three-game series sweep at Dodger Stadium.
He hit a leadoff home run as a hitter, the second-straight time he has done so in a pitching start. He gave up only one run in his six innings on the mound, after walking one batter and hitting another to lead off the fourth.
And he finished his outing with seven strikeouts — turning over a combined no-hitter bid that wasn’t broken up until Tyler Freeman’s single off Tanner Scott with two outs in the eighth, which represented the Rockies’ lone hit of the night.
And yet … Ohtani seemed upset.
“Command was off, and I just felt like I was battling the lack of it,” Ohtani said through an interpreter, describing his postgame emotion as that of “frustration.”
It was evident early, when he dropped an audible F-bomb after yanking a 2-0 fastball en route to walking Ezequiel Tovar in the second.
Frustration mounted again in the fourth, when he followed up a full-count free pass to TJ Rumfield by plunking Hunter Goodman –– allowing the Rockies to eventually score their lone run against him on back-to-back ground balls.
Even after he concluded his night as a pitcher, allowing no further damage in a performance that (in a sign of his pitching dominance so far this year) slightly raised his ERA to 0.82, Ohtani looked disgruntled back in the dugout.
His final line was six innings, one run, no hits, four walks, one hit batter and seven strikeouts.
A gem for anyone else. A disappointment for the superstar four-time MVP.
“I would rather take the days where I get hit a little bit but still be efficient,” Ohtani said, “rather than walking and just not being able to pitch deeper into the game.”
Ohtani still got the winning decision on Wednesday, preserving the Dodgers’ early lead on a night the team lost another key player to an injury (Teoscar Hernández departed in the second inning with a hamstring strain).
Two at-bats after Ohtani’s leadoff blast, Freddie Freeman also took Rockies starter Tomoyuki Sugano deep, belting another solo home run the other way to left field.
Following the Rockies’ lone run in the fourth, the Dodgers immediately responded by getting a run of their own in the bottom half of the inning. Then in the eighth, Andy Pages provided insurance with his team-leading 13th home run of the season, making him the first hitter in the majors this year to reach 50 RBIs.
It meant, in the end, Wednesday proved to be another rudimentary win for the Dodgers –– even if Ohtani expected more of himself.
“This guy is just a crazy good competitor,” manager Dave Roberts said. “The great ones, you look at six innings, no-hit ball [and think] that could’ve been seven or eight. That’s what makes guys like that special.”
What it means
The Dodgers (36-20) remain on a tear, having now won five games in a row and 12 of their last 14.
This week, the last-place Rockies (20-37) stood little chance, getting outscored 24-10 in the Dodgers’ fifth sweep of the season.
Suddenly, after being in a close NL West race early on this year, the Dodgers are now starting to pull away. With Wednesday’s win, they are 4 ½ games up on the slumping San Diego Padres (who have lost four-straight) and the surging Arizona Diamondbacks (who have won five in a row and nine out of 10).
Who’s hot
Ohtani might have been unhappy with his execution. But it did little to halt his scorching start to the season as a pitcher.
It didn’t matter that he only used two pitches, his fastball and his sweeper, for most of the night. Or that his poor command forced him to deal with traffic in four of his six innings.
For the seventh time in nine pitching starts this year, he went at least six innings while allowing no more than one earned run. His 0.82 ERA entering June will mark the ninth-lowest ERA an MLB pitcher has ever carried that deep into a season (minimum 50 innings).
Ohtani is still below the minimum innings threshold to be qualified for the ERA title (he has just 55 total innings in the Dodgers’ 56 games this year, leaving him one off the pace for now). But, among pitchers with as many innings as him, only one has an ERA even below 1.50 (the Phillies’ Cristopher Sanchez at 1.47).
“There’s some kind of uncharacteristic walks in there and getting into bad counts,” Roberts said. “But when it gets stressful, he makes pitches when he needs to.”
Who’s not
Teoscar Hernández, and his strained left hamstring.
Hernández hurt himself while trying to beat out a ground ball in the second inning, immediately grabbing for the back of his left leg after getting thrown out at first.
He looked visibly upset upon returning to the dugout, as well, nearly slamming his helmet before disappearing into the clubhouse.
After the game, Roberts said Hernández is expected to land on the injured list. And while his timeline to return isn’t clear, any potential absence from him would be a blow to the team’s offense –– given how well he had been playing lately, and the fact that Kiké Hernández went on the injured list before the game with an oblique strain.
Up next
The Dodgers are off on Thursday, before hosting the Philadelphia Phillies for an NLDS rematch starting on Friday night.
Justin Wrobleski (6-2, 3.07 ERA) will get the start in Friday’s series-opener.
