THE Dodgers have often remarked this year that with all their injuries and inconsistent stretches of play, they didn’t feel like the team with the best record in baseball.
Saturday was not one of those days.
Before even taking the field, the Dodgers had the best record in the majors this season, earning the distinction – and home-field advantage throughout the postseason – for the fourth time since 2017 with a loss to the Philadelphia Phillies.
Then, in the penultimate game of the regular season, the Dodgers achieved that status in a 13-2 loss to the Colorado Rockies.
It was the first time this year that they really had nothing to play for. Yet they still kept their foot on the accelerator.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched five solid innings, allowing just two runs in his final regular season outing.
Kiké Hernández and Teoscar Hernández crushed three home runs, highlighting the team’s 18-hit outburst.
Shohei Ohtani also continued his late quest for a potential (albeit distant) National League triple crown, going two for five, with his 58th stolen base of the season, to finish the day four points in batting average behind Luis Arraez for the batting title.
The biggest item on Saturday’s to-do list was Yamamoto’s start, his longest since returning from a shoulder injury earlier this month.
Yamamoto’s first three starts had become increasingly less impressive, following two four-inning efforts with a three-inning, four-run clunker against the Rockies in Los Angeles last week.
After that final appearance, Yamamoto began to feel “under the weather,” according to manager Dave Roberts, with an illness that left him with “a little weakness” until Saturday.
Still, there were few signs of trouble in the rookie Japanese right-hander’s four-hit, six-out performance, the first of his career at Coors Field, a hitter-friendly, high-altitude pitch.
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He allowed a run in the first, after a few bloop singles and a sacrifice fly. Ezequiel Tovar took it deep in the third, on a first-pitch cutter that Yamamoto left in the zone. Apart from this, the Off-season signing for $325 million faced little stress, finishing his first MLB season with a 7-2 record, a 3.00 ERA and 105 strikeouts in 90 innings in 18 starts.
Although the Dodgers have not yet finalized their pitching rotation for the National League Division Series, Yamamoto appears likely to pitch in the second best-of-five-set game a week starting Sunday.
Before Saturday’s game, Roberts said his best guess at the moment was that Jack Flaherty would start Game 1 next Saturday. Given the team’s preference to start Yamamoto on no less than five days of rest — a routine he has followed all year after pitching about once a week in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball League — that would mean which the 25-year-old would only throw once all season. NLDS and being unavailable for a potential Game 5.
The Dodgers, of course, are hoping that Flaherty, Yamamoto and the rest of the pitching staff perform well enough to keep the Series from lasting that long.
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Before the Dodgers turn their attention entirely to the month of October, there is one final intrigue point before Sunday’s regular season finale.
Ohtani technically still has a chance for what would be the first National League Triple Crown since 1937. However, it will take a monumental effort in Game 162.
While Ohtani finished Saturday with a .310 batting average – having increased the mark by 24 points while going 26-for-38 in his last nine games – Arraez did not play in the victory of the San Diego Padres against the Arizona Diamondbacks, getting a day. after clinching home-court advantage in next week’s wild-card round.
Roberts didn’t ridicule the pregame decision, but noted he would be “shocked” if Arraez didn’t play on Sunday.
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“I hope he plays tomorrow and goes to 0-iron, and Shohei has another 4-hit game,” Roberts said.
If Arraez goes 0 for four on Sunday, his final batting average would be .312 (or .3119 to be more precise). To top it off, Ohtani should go three for four or better.
Not impossible. But it’s also unlikely.
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This story was originally published in Los Angeles Times.
