A fast start but not much else as deadline creeps closer – Dodgers Digest

Despite winning relatively comfortably yesterday, today was always going to be a much tougher task due to the pitching matchup. Surprisingly, things started well for the Dodgers with a pair of early homers, but it was the Red Sox who took the lead back quickly and never relented to hand the Dodgers a 4-2 loss.

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The Dodgers started well against Red Sox starter Garrett Crochet, as Shohei Ohtani led the game off with his 38th homer of the year and Teoscar Hernandez followed later with his 16th dinger for a quick 2-0 lead.

Start it off, Shohei! pic.twitter.com/QP0VHawJNa

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) July 26, 2025

TEOSCAR OVER THE GREEN MONSTER. pic.twitter.com/kQxM8Q30Qa

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) July 26, 2025

There was one down in the inning when Freddie Freeman and Andy Pages hit back-to-back singles, but the Dodgers ran themselves out of the inning when Freddie went for third on Pages’ hit and got thrown out.

Crochet settled in from there, scattering four singles and a walk over the next five innings, which bought his offense time.

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Opposing Crochet was Clayton Kershaw in another amusing stuff matchup, and while he got a scoreless 1st, the two-out walk was an indication of some command problems to follow. In the 2nd, he issued a lead-off walk and a double followed, both of whom were driven in by Jarren Duran‘s triple to tie things up at 2-2.

Jarren Duran gets that ball over the head of Andy Pages and this game is all tied up!

?: FOX pic.twitter.com/k0PmiqxAvl

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) July 26, 2025

Kershaw did manage to settle in a bit and only allowed a sac fly the rest of the inning, so the Red Sox had a 3-2 lead.

A double play helped him navigate around a pair of singles to start the 3rd, and he followed that with a clean 4th. However, a two-out rally in the 5th cost him, as a single and Roman Anthony double made it 4-2 and knocked him out of the game.

Roman Anthony drives in Alex Bregman and the Red Sox lead the Dodgers 4-2!

?: FOX pic.twitter.com/SPNC2TK147

— FOX Sports: MLB (@MLBONFOX) July 27, 2025

Edgardo Henriquez entered and got the final out of the 5th, handing it off to Alexis Diaz in the 6th, who gave up a two-out triple but nothing more.

Will Klein got the 7th and continued to struggle, giving up a pair of one-out singles and a walk to load the bases before getting out of it with a double play. Kirby Yates finished off the Red Sox in the 8th, giving up a two-out double but nothing else.

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Against the Red Sox pen, the Dodgers didn’t have much success.

They had a two-out single from Will Smith in the 7th, but he got thrown out trying to stretch it into a double, a common theme for this team of late. Nothing got going in the 8th, and while Esteury Ruiz amusingly walked with two outs in the 9th to bring the tying run to the plate, there was no storybook finish this time around.

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The series finale will be tomorrow at the unholy time of 7:35 AM HT/10:35 AM PT/1:35 PM ET. It’ll be Dustin May perhaps making his final appearance as a Dodger against old friend Walker Buehler.