The Dodgers scored in almost every way imaginable on Saturday night.
Walk. Hit batter. Sacrifice fly. Error. Even a Little League home run from Shohei Ohtani.
If there was a run to push across, the Dodgers found a way to do it.
In a 15-2 drubbing of the Angels in Anaheim, Calif., the Dodgers needed just 10 hits to mount their highest-scoring performance of the season.
They’ve now won four-straight games, and have clinched this weekend’s Freeway Series against their cross-town rivals.
Hits were hard to come by early on Saturday night, as the Dodgers faced one of the majors’ best pitchers so far this year in hard-throwing right-hander José Soriano. For five innings, Soriano held the club to just one run (courtesy of a first-inning Will Smith sac fly) on only one hit (a single from Mookie Betts two at-bats into the game).
But on a night Soriano lacked consistent command, the Dodgers found a way to adjust.
In the sixth inning, the team scored five times –– on the back of only one base knock.
Instead, they took one free base after another to help break the game wide open, loading the bases on two walks and a hit batter, then scoring three runs on two more walks and another hit-by-pitch once the bases were loaded.
Not until Alex Call snuck a two-run single through the infield, making the score 6-0, did the team finally record its second hit of the game.
The Dodgers’ bats finally started to break out from there, leading to a four-run onslaught in the eighth and a five-run pile-on in the ninth.
Ohtani delivered the key moment in both frames.
In the eighth, he recorded his first triple of the season on a ball down the right-field line that one-hopped off the protective netting in front of the stands (the Angels challenged the play, but live balls that hit the netting are considered to still be in play). The two-way star then turned it into a Little League home run by racing home as the Angels flubbed a relay play. Mookie Betts hit the team’s only actual home run of the night in the following at-bat.
In the ninth, the Dodgers had already scored twice –– one of them, via a throwing error by reliever Alek Manoah –– when Ohtani came up again with the bases loaded. This time, he roped a traditional double into the right-field corner to plate three runs, finishing the game with a season-high five RBIs.
After their 9-14 slide through the final two weeks of April and first couple weeks of May, the Dodgers (28-18) are finally on a winning streak again. More importantly, their offense seems to finally be coming back to life.
The team has now scored 26 runs in its last three games.
It saddled Soriano with six, a season-high for him that raised his ERA from 1.66 to 2.41.
It all gave Justin Wrobleski plenty of breathing room by the end of his six-inning, two-run, five-strikeout start, leaving him with an ERA of 2.49 on the year.
It also allowed the Dodgers to stay away from their best relievers, giving the bullpen a much-needed break after Friday’s emergency bullpen game.
Wrobleski once again pitched to contact (getting just eight whiffs on 51) yet found a way to limit damage (holding the Angels 1-for-8 when runners were in scoring position).
The left-hander has now completed at least six innings in six-straight starts. Saturday was also the sixth time in seven starts overall that he allowed no more than two runs.
Early in the night, Wrobleski leaned on his defense –– most notably when Pages saved what would have been a game-tying run with a diving catch in center to end the fourth. His biggest pitches, however, came after the Angels finally broke through in the bottom of the sixth.
Three straight batters reached to begin the inning, including a two-run double from Jo Adell that got the Angels on the board for the first time all weekend. But then, Wrobleski bounced back by retiring the next three he faced, saving the Dodgers’ bullpen some valuable bullets.
Still, the Angels (16-30), who became the first team in the majors to reach 30 losses this season.
They did so in emphatically fitting fashion Saturday, which was marred by poor hitting, worse pitching, and outright abysmal defense over the game’s final couple innings.
If the Dodgers made their 15-run outburst almost look easy, it’s because the Angels let them.
Looking for their first series sweep in a month, the Dodgers will turn to Roki Sasaki (1-3, 5.88 ERA) for Sunday’s series finale. The Angels will counter with offseason trade acquisition Grayson Rodriguez, who will be making his team debut –– and first MLB start since July 2024 –– after repeated bouts of elbow and shoulder problems.
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