Shohei Ohtani pitches 10-strikeout gem as Dodgers sweep Mets

Even with a reliever warm for the sixth inning on Wednesday, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts decided to ride with Shohei Ohtani.

On the rare night he wasn’t in the lineup as a hitter, the four-time MVP responded with a breathless exhibition of pure pitching dominance.

In the Dodgers’ 8-2 win over the New York Mets, Ohtani helped complete a three-game series sweep with six spectacular innings on the mound.

He gave up just one run. He allowed only two hits. And in a 10-strikeout exhibition, he saved his best stuff for the end of the night –– striking out the side in the top of the sixth with a swing-and-miss fastball, then curveball, then splitter.

Good morning, good afternoon and a very good night.

That was the story Wednesday, with the Dodgers (14-4) continuing their scorching hot start to the season even without the help of Ohtani’s bat.

As the two-way star continues to nurse a shoulder bruise he suffered on a hit-by-pitch Monday, the Dodgers decided to simplify his task, taking him out of the batting order so he could solely focus on his duties as a pitcher.

The move paid off perfectly, with Ohtani turning in perhaps his best start this year (despite allowing his first earned run of the campaign) while his DH replacement, Dalton Rushing, led the way offensively with a double and a grand slam.

“It was actually really good to watch him just focus on one thing,” manager Dave Roberts said of Ohtani. “I thought that just channeling all that energy into pitching was helpful.”

Indeed, in Ohtani’s 95-pitch gem, he had every arrow in his six-pitch quiver working.

His upper-90s mph fastball was dotted at the top of the zone. Big-bending sweepers and late-breaking curveballs and fall-of-the-table splitters helped complement it. 

And the few times he faced stress, he also back and dialed up triple-digit heat –– most notably, firing off four-straight 100 mph fastballs to strand runners at second and third after allowing his lone run in the fifth.

“That was a situation,” Ohtani said in Japanese, “in which I had to exert max effort to hold them.”

At that point, Roberts considered removing Ohtani from the game. After he threw 22 pitches in the fifth, the Dodgers had Blake Treinen ready to go for the sixth.

“I was thinking about potentially pulling the plug right there,” the manager said. “But once he finished that (fifth) inning, I wanted to give him the opportunity to go back out there for the sixth.”

Thus, Ohtani returned to the bump, put an exclamation point on his outing by striking out the side, then exited the game to a loud ovation.

“I mean, it’s Shohei,” Rushing quipped. “I don’t have too much more to say on top of that.”

“I think he’s arguably one of the best now,” he later added, “(especially) when you give him that opportunity to just solely worry about pitching.”

On the other side of the ball, it was Rushing who spurred the Dodgers’ offense in Ohtani’s absence, helping them take an early lead and then pull away late.

In the second inning, he lined a two-out, two-strike double that preceded a two-run homer from Hyeseong Kim. Then, after a Tesocar Hernández homer in the sixth extended the lead, the backup catcher delivered the knockout punch in a five-run eighth inning by belting his first career grand slam off Mets closer Devin Williams.

“Well, I’m not getting used to it, I’ll tell you that,” Rushing joked about replacing Ohtani as DH. “But he told me to hit a homer for him, and I guess it worked out in the end.”

What it means

The Dodgers completed their second sweep of the season, and have now won 10 of 12 games by finishing this homestand with a 5-1 record.

They are also 9-0 against National League opponents to this point, making easy work of a Mets team that –– prior to their dreadful 7-12 start to this season –– was thought to be their biggest competition for this year’s pennant.

During the series, Dodgers starters gave up just two runs over 21 ⅔ innings while striking out 19 batters.

They were also better defensively, with Wednesday’s highlights including a couple tough short-hoppers that Max Muncy cleanly turned at third base, then a diving stop from Kim at shortstop to end the eighth inning. 

Most of all, the bottom of their lineup remained productive, with Rushing’s 2-for-4 display highlighting a six-hit effort from their Nos. 6-9 batters.

Who’s hot

If Ohtani’s surface-line stats weren’t impressive enough, the way he navigated Wednesday’s start only added to the performance.

Several times, he seemingly toyed with a Juan Soto-less Mets lineup that has scored just 12 runs during an eight-game losing streak.

He used a slide step to finally strike out Francisco Lindor in an 11-pitch at-bat to end the third. He ran the pitch clock down against Brett Baty in the fourth before getting him to hit a harmless comebacker to the mound.

After spending much of the past two years recovering from a second Tommy John surgery, it was a further reminder that the 31-year-old is quickly getting comfortable again as a full-time pitcher –– helping him finish the night with a 0.50 ERA this season.

“I do think that he looks at (pitching) as an art,” Roberts said. “It’s not just trying to bully guys with the fastball. It’s kind of how you set guys up, front to back, east-west, and use your entire pitch mix.”

Who’s not

This was going to be Kyle Tucker, after he entered the eighth inning 0-for-4. But even the scuffling $240 million offseason signing salvaged his night with a stat-padding home run after Rushing’s grand slam.

Still, the Dodgers are waiting on Tucker to truly heat up, with his game-winning hit on Tuesday failing to snap him out of his early-season slump

Defensively, Tucker also had a forgettable moment in the fifth, when MJ Melendez plated the Mets’ only run off Ohtani with an RBI double that Tucker failed to get to in the right field corner.

Up next

The Dodgers are off Thursday, before starting a week-long road trip Friday with a four-game set in Denver against the Colorado Rockies. That will be followed by a three-game series in San Francisco against the Giants.

Download The California Post App, follow us on social, and subscribe to our newsletters