PITTSBURGH –– Dalton Rushing was unsuccessful on the one call he tried to challenge in the bottom of the seventh Wednesday night.

Three other times, in what became a three-run inning that triggered a late-game meltdown in the Dodgers’ eventual loss to the Pittsburgh Pirates, both he and pitcher Shohei Ohtani missed the chance to use MLB’s new ABS system to turn called balls into what could have been game-changing strikes.

“I hesitated whether to challenge,” Ohtani said in Japanese afterward. “Looking at the results, I think it would have been better to.”

Granted, that wasn’t the main reason for the Dodgers’ painful 9-8 defeat at PNC Park –– not on a night the team’s bullpen combined to allow five more runs in the eighth as the Dodgers blew what had been a five-run lead. 

Still, the borderline pitches nonetheless became a topic of conversation in the clubhouse postgame, starting with Ohtani’s admission to reporters himself.

“I went up to around here,” he said while raising his hand to his head, mimicking the signal for an ABS challenge. “But I didn’t take the last step.”

Entering the seventh, the Dodgers were in total control. They had built a 6-1 lead on Ryan Ward’s grand slam an inning earlier. Ohtani, meanwhile, was back on the mound trying to complete his latest pitching gem.

Against leadoff hitter Tyler Callihan, however, the pair’s first missed ABS opportunity set the disaster in motion.

In a 1-0 count, Ohtani threw a low fastball that, according to MLB’s Gameday system, caught the bottom of the zone. With both of their challenges remaining at that point, either Rushing or Ohtani could have opted for an ABS appeal.

Alas, they let the at-bat roll on. And while Ohtani eventually worked the count full, he couldn’t put Callihan away with a fastball or a sweeper, before finally missing with a curveball for what would prove to be a consequential leadoff walk.

Three batters later, the Pirates had two aboard with one out when Rushing did tap his head for an ABS review, trying to change a first-pitch splitter to Spencer Horwitz into a strike on the outer edge. 

But the verdict, as was displayed via a video graphic on the stadium scoreboard, was that the pitch was indeed outside –– by a whole two-tenths of an inch.

Ohtani would bounce back to strike out Horwitz. But with only one challenge left at that point, the dynamics of the Dodgers’ ABS strategy had shifted.

“You never want to go into the eighth, ninth inning without a challenge from an offensive side, especially in a close game,” Rushing noted.

“That,” manager Dave Roberts added, “might have been something that caused a little bit of a pause [the rest of the inning].”

Indeed, as Brandon Lowe came to the plate next, Rushing declined to challenge two balls that could have been overturned: A first-pitch heater seemed to clip the outer edge of the plate, then another 2-0 four-seamer that appeared to graze the bottom corner.

Ohtani almost tapped his head on the latter pitch, but stopped as Rushing shook his head from the plate. 

“Our plan is basically for the catcher to do it, so I don’t do it unless I have a lot of confidence,” Ohtani said. 

“But considering the situation,” he added in hindsight, “I think it could have been good to do it.”

Instead, in what was a 3-0 count, Ohtani predictably threw a fastball in the zone that Lowe ambushed for a two-run double down the line.

Just like that, the two-way star’s night on the mound was over.

And suddenly, the door had opened for a stunning Pirates comeback –– which would be completed after Lowe scored on a Max Muncy error later in the seventh, and Callihan and Horwitz both hit home runs in the five-run eighth.

“I haven’t looked back, but I did hear a couple of those pitches to Lowe were strikes,” Roberts said. “They would have obviously flipped the count. You never know.”

Rushing, who spent a long time with his head hanging low at his locker postgame, was also left second-guessing himself, saying that while he thought both pitches in the moment were balls, “maybe one of the two were worth challenging.”

Rushing added that he considers several factors when evaluating ABS opportunities, from the score of the game to the leverage of the inning.

“Do we need one [challenge to be saved] late in the game? Do we have two? Do we have one to waste?” he said.

But, “obviously seeing what we saw there tonight,” he countered, “it would have been nice to hold it.”

Roberts was careful not to put blame on either player for their ABS decisions. He also specifically praised the strides Rushing has made using the system this year; an area the second-year backstop struggled with early in the season, before improving his ABS challenge rate recently thanks to behind-the-scenes work with the club’s augmented reality Trajekt pitching machine.

“Probably in his opinion, it wasn’t worth the challenge,” Roberts said. “It’s not an exact science.”

Another factor that might have complicated matters: Wednesday was the first time this year Rushing caught one of Ohtani’s outings, getting his fourth-straight start as Will Smith battles a neck injury that will force him to go on the injured list Thursday.

The new battery pairing wasn’t seamless, with Ohtani noting he shook off a few more pitches than usual (something he said was to be expected given the duo’s lack of familiarity).

Nonetheless, with slightly better use of the ABS system in the seventh, the night still could have had a much happier ending.

Instead, as both players dressed and exited the clubhouse, Ohtani passed by Rushing and gave him a pat on the back –– almost as if to say, oh well, lesson learned for both of them.