SAN FRANCISCO –– For six innings Wednesday night, Shohei Ohtani tortured the San Francisco Giants’ offense.
In the Dodgers’ 3-0 loss at Oracle Park, Ohtani’s pitching was the only bright spot in what was the club’s fourth loss in its last five games.
While he spun six scoreless frames, neither the lineup nor the bullpen could provide any support, setting the stage for a back-breaking sequence in the bottom of the seventh.
With Ohtani’s night over after 91 pitches, left-handed reliever Jack Dreyer took the mound and immediately gave the game away. The first two batters he faced both singled. Then, after a sacrifice bunt, he hung a slider to Patrick Bailey that the Giants catcher –– and previously .145-hitting No. 9 batter –– clobbered for a no-doubt three-run homer.
The Dodgers’ offense mustered no such magic. For the first time this season, they were shut out, finishing the night with just four hits.
Giants starter Tyler Mahle frustrated them over seven scoreless innings. And after the fourth, they never even put a runner in scoring position.
Ohtani, as a hitter, wasn’t immune to such struggles, losing his 53-game on-base streak with a 0-for-4 performance.
The defeat clinches a losing road trip for the Dodgers, who have gone 2-4 this week against the Giants and Colorado Rockies.
Now, they are in danger of suffering their first series sweep of the season, too.
Not what they were expecting from a trip in which they faced two sub-.500 teams.
In his six scoreless innings, the right-hander continued his electric start to the season. He struck out seven batters. He gave up just five hits. He didn’t walk anyone. And he had some of his best raw stuff in a Dodgers uniform.
His fastball averaged a season-high 98.8 mph, and eclipsed the 100 mph mark seven times. His sweeper was almost unhittable, generating a whiff 9 of the 15 times the Giants swung at it.
And he even flashed some rare emotion at the end of his night, stranding runners at second and third in the sixth with a strikeout of Casey Schmitt that had him fist-pumping as he spun off the mound.
In four starts overall this season, Ohtani has now allowed just one earned run in 24 innings, good for a 0.38 ERA to go along with 25 strikeouts.
The Dodgers’ offense –– including Ohtani, the hitter, who failed to set a new record-long on-base streak in the franchise’s Los Angeles history after tying Shawn Green at 53 games.
Ohtani, of course, was far from the only disappointment on Wednesday.
Kyle Tucker also failed to reach base in a 0-for-4 clunker. Teoscar Hernández and Hyeseong Kim were hitless, as well, while squandering the team’s two best chances of the night –– Hernández by grounding out with two aboard in the first, and Kim by doing the same in the fourth.
Outside of Freddie Freeman, who was 2-for-4, the rest of the team was 2-for-27.
The Dodgers will try to avoid their first sweep this season in Thursday afternoon’s series finale. Tyler Glasnow (2-0, 3.24 ERA) will face Logan Webb (2-2, 5.40 ERA) in the 12:45 p.m. start.
