SAN DIEGO –– Shohei Ohtani raked at the start of the night. He roared when his outing as a pitcher was over. Then, he and the Dodgers rolled to a series win in San Diego.
Nearly a month removed from his last two-way start, the two-way star was at the center of it all Wednesday at Petco Park, lifting the Dodgers to a 4-0 rubber-match win over the Padres with a leadoff home run and five scoreless innings pitched.
“He wants to win that Cy Young, he wants to help us win games, and he wants to be a really productive offensive player,” manager Dave Roberts said. “At this point in time, he’s doing all the above.”
It had been a minute since the Dodgers could last say that about Ohtani. During his uneven start to the year, he had battled both fatigue and an extended slump at the plate.
That’s why, in his previous three pitching appearances, the four-time MVP had been held out of the Dodgers’ lineup as a hitter. The three times he did play both ways earlier this season, he went just 1-for-10 at the plate with no home runs.
Wednesday, however, was closer to the version the Dodgers (31-19) witnessed last October, in Ohtani’s historic three-homer, 10-strikeout tour de force in the National League Championship Series.
The stakes weren’t as high Wednesday. But his performance was cut from the same cloth.
He went deep on the first pitch of the game, jumping on an elevated fastball from Padres starter Randy Vásquez for a towering drive to straightaway center. Then, he produced his fifth start this season without an earned run, retiring the first nine batters he faced (albeit with an elevated pitch count) before working out of jams in the fourth and fifth innings.
Neither Ohtani nor Roberts believed the 31-year-old right-hander had his best stuff against the Padres, after he struck out just four batters and failed to reach the sixth inning for the first time this year.
Ohtani even noted that, entering the night, he felt “a lot of uncertainty” about the feel for his pitches.
“The results were good, as you saw, but the process wasn’t that great,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. “I have a pretty high standard as far as performance. It didn’t really match.”
Still, both times danger knocked, Ohtani didn’t let the Padres (29-20) break down the door.
In the fourth, he wiggled out of a two-on, one-out jam. Then in the fifth, he escaped a bases-loaded threat by getting Fernando Tatis Jr. to roll into a double-play.
He flexed his arms and let out a long roar as he skipped off the mound after the latter sequence. At 88 pitches, his pitching outing would go no further.
“Getting that double play right there was big,” Roberts said. “It was good to see him show some emotion.”
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By that point, the Dodgers were already cruising to a win. Max Muncy doubled to lead off the second, then scored on a sacrifice fly from Teoscar Hernández. Ohtani walked to begin the fifth, then scored on an RBI single from Kyle Tucker.
There would be no further dramatics down the stretch, either, with the Dodgers bullpen combining for four scoreless innings and Hernández adding an insurance solo blast in the ninth.
“I really measure myself (on how I perform) when I don’t really feel that great pitching in crucial games,” Ohtani said. “This was one of those games.”
And once again, he delivered.
What it means
Just like when they arrived at Petco Park at the start of this week, the Dodgers leave sitting in first place in the National League West division.
That wasn’t the case after Monday’s series-opener, when the Padres moved a half-game in front by shutting the Dodgers out in a 1-0 win. But after a come-from-behind victory on Tuesday, the Dodgers returned the favor in Wednesday’s sold-out finale, moving 1 ½ games clear of their Southern California rivals with their NL-leading sixth shutout this season.
Who’s hot
Ohtani, obviously. And no longer just as a pitcher.
While his 0.73 ERA remains best in the majors among pitchers with at least 40 innings (his 49 total frames are one shy of the qualification threshold at the 50-game mark), his hitting has also finally started to return to league-leading form.
By going 1-for-4 with a walk on Wednesday, Ohtani has now reached safely multiple times in seven-straight games as a hitter. In that stretch, he is hitting .481, has gotten aboard in 20 of 34 plate appearances, has seven extra-base hits, and has driven in 10 runs.
With that, his season batting average is up to .272 and his OPS to .885, the highest they have been since the end of April.
And while his Cy Young case will generate season-long intrigue, he is already well on his way to a fifth MVP honor, already the first player in the National League to eclipse 3.0 combined wins above replacement this year.
“For him to homer that first at bat,” Roberts said, “I think he was like, ‘OK, I contributed on the offensive side.’”
Who’s not
Anyone who felt Ohtani would be better served forgoing his full-time two-way role amid his early-season scuffles.
The toll of his tasks still presents risks, no doubt. It was only last week that Roberts gave him back-to-back days off as a hitter after sensing the slugger was struggling with fatigue.
Wednesday, however, was a reminder of the unprecedented impact Ohtani can make when he’s excelling in both phases; how, even at less than his absolute best, he can completely transform the complexion of a game.
That doesn’t mean the Dodgers won’t still be careful with his usage. If anything, his grind of a start was “just another case in point that it’s good for us to be mindful of the workload and just not take that for granted,” Roberts said.
“But again,” the manager added, “he’s still pretty special and got through it.”
And as for the external speculation about the difficulty of his two-way task?
“I think that, at times, he uses that as motivation to prove people wrong,” Roberts said.
Up next
The Dodgers are off on Thursday, before going to Milwaukee for the final leg of this three-city road trip. Justin Wrobleski (6-1, 2.49 ERA) will face Brewers right-hander Logan Henderson (1-1, 3.50) in Friday’s series-opener.
