One day after Shohei Ohtani supplied a much-needed victory for the Los Angeles Dodgers to prevent an empty road trip, the club is set to start a three-day visit back home with a series against the Colorado Rockies on Monday.
Ohtani hit a pair of home runs in Sunday’s 5-2 victory over the Baltimore Orioles. The Dodgers (79-64) recorded their lone win on a six-game road trip that also included a visit to Pittsburgh.
The victory helped erase some of the misery from Saturday’s wild spectacle that saw Los Angeles right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto lose a no-hitter with two outs in the ninth inning before Baltimore rallied for an improbable victory.
“I do like the way that our guys weren’t downtrodden,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Sunday. “We were kind of up, looking forward to playing a ballgame, to win a game. And that’s a tell that you have confidence still in the room.”
Ohtani set the tone early by going deep to start the game, his 12th leadoff home run of the season that tied Mookie Betts’ franchise record from 2023. Philadelphia Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber owns the major league record with 15 last season.
“There’s a lot of vets in here and a lot of guys that know how to handle bad situations,” said Betts, who belted back-to-back home runs with Ohtani in the third inning.
Ohtani has 48 home runs, one off Schwarber’s National League lead.
Los Angeles has not named a starter for Monday’s game, although right-hander Tyler Glasnow (1-3, 3.41 ERA) could take the mound after his scheduled start Friday at Baltimore was skipped because of back discomfort. He was sent back to Los Angeles and reportedly was feeling better.
The Rockies are set to send rookie right-hander Chase Dollander (2-12, 6.77) to the mound. Dollander is 0-2 with a 9.64 ERA in two starts against the Dodgers this season, including an outing at home on Aug. 21 when he was roughed up for seven runs on nine hits over 3 2/3 innings.
In his most recent outing, Dollander was charged with six runs on five hits and three walks in an 8-2 loss to the San Francisco Giants last Monday.
Dollander now hits the road, where he has a 3.64 ERA in nine starts. He has a 9.98 ERA in 11 starts at Colorado.
“All of his stuff is good so it’s just a matter of executing it. That’s all,” Rockies interim manager Warren Schaeffer said.
Colorado (40-103) is one defeat away from setting the franchise record for most losses in a season.
The Rockies, who have lost five of their past six games, have 19 games remaining this season.
The last time Colorado won multiple games in the same series came during a 2-2 split at home with the Dodgers from Aug. 18-21. At the time of an Aug. 20 victory versus Los Angeles, the Rockies were on a promising 7-2 run. Since then, though, they are on a 3-13 downturn.
The Dodgers have won eight of the 10 games thus far in the season series.
–Field Level Media
