The Dodgers (78-63) dropped the opening game of this three game set against the Baltimore Orioles (65-76) last night in yet another deflating loss. The consistent trend of inconsistency continued, with the pitchers allowing just one run and four hits through eight innings. You’d think that would be enough, but naturally it wasn’t, with the Dodgers scoring just one run on a Freddie Freeman solo shot. Four of the six pitchers they faced had ERAs above 4.4, yet they managed just one run. That’s now four runs over their last three games. The issues that plague them change from game to game, but they’re yet to play a clean game over this four game losing streak. It’s too late in the year for this to happen, and they need to turn the corner soon. All that matters is that they’re hot at the right time, but they’ve been bad for such a long stretch, that at a certain point it’s more likely that you just are what your results indicate. The Dodgers will look to even up the series today with Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the mound up against Trevor Rogers who has been on an absolute tear for over two months.
4:05 P.M.
Baltimore
DH
Ohtani (L)
2B
Holliday (L)
SS
Betts
RF
Jackson
RF
T. Hernández
SS
Henderson (L)
1B
Freeman (L)
DH
Mountcastle
LF
Call
CF
Cowser (L)
CF
Pages
3B
Rivera
2B
Rojas
LF
Beavers (L)
3B
K. Hernández
C
Basallo (L)
C
Rortvedt (L)
1B
Mayo
P
Yamamoto (R)
P
Rogers (L)
Alex Call gets the start against the left-handed Rogers, while Michael Conforto heads to the bench after another hitless game. Last night the offense comprised mainly of Freeman and Mookie Betts, who each narrowly missed home runs in the first inning. Mookie also laced one directly to Dylan Beavers in left field, so those two have been seeing the ball well. Kiké Hernández is in the lineup at third base while Miguel Rojas shifts to second with Hyeseong Kim on the bench. Ben Rortvedt gets his first start of the year with Dalton Rushing hitting the injured list.
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Here’s how Rogers and Yamamoto have fared.
Yamamoto allowed one run on four hits with ten strikeouts over seven innings his last time out. That outing marked his third double-digit strikeout game of the year, and his third consecutive quality start. He crossed the 4.0 fWAR threshold his last time out, the ninth highest mark in all of baseball. He’s top-five in nearly every major stat among National League starting pitchers, and with a good final month will likely finish near the top-five in NL Cy Young voting. He had a rough stretch in the middle part of the year, but has more or less shown the upside of being one of the best pitchers in the sport. Maybe a small thing to monitor are his results without Will Smith, as he had a 1.97 ERA in five games with Rushing catching him, as opposed to a 3.04 ERA with Smith. Rortvedt is known for being a very solid defensive catcher, so we’ll see how Yamamoto performs with a new batterymate.
Rogers has been on an unbelievable run this year, most recently coming off of an outing against the Giants where he allowed just one run over seven innings which has become the new norm for him. He’s allowed just one earned run over each of his last six starts, going exactly seven innings in four consecutive starts. He’s yet to allow more than two runs in an outing this season, and has allowed six earned runs across his last seven starts over 49.0 innings, good for a 1.10 ERA. Theo DeRosa of MLB.com wrote an excellent article yesterday about Rogers and his unbelievable 2025 season thus far. It goes into much greater detail than anything I could explain here, and you should absolutely give it a read.
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In other news, there are positive updates across the board for injured Dodgers.
Tyler Glasnow appears to be fine, and is back in Los Angeles for the upcoming series against the Rockies.
It would appear that for the time being Rortvedt is the starter while the Dodgers wait on Smith and Rushing to return.
A high-leverage arm returning is always much welcomed.
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First pitch is at 4:05 PT on SNLA.
