BALTIMORE — Shohei Ohtani tossed 3⅔ shutout innings Friday night in a surprise start for the Dodgers against the Orioles after teammate Tyler Glasnow was scratched due to back stiffness.
Ohtani threw 70 pitches, 44 for strikes, and reached 101.5 mph with his four-seam fastball against Orioles third baseman Emmanuel Rivera. The 31-year-old right-hander allowed three hits and a walk while striking out five, but the slumping Dodgers lost 2-1 in the opener of a three-game series.
Los Angeles dropped its fourth straight but remained two games up in the National League West over the skidding San Diego Padres.
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Left-hander Anthony Banda replaced Ohtani in the fourth with Ryan Mountcastle at third base. Banda walked Dylan Beavers but then retired Samuel Basallo on a grounder to end the inning.
Dodgers teammate Freddie Freeman appreciated Ohtani’s effort on short notice.
“You could see he’s exhausted after an inning or two,” Freeman said. “It’s muggy. He’s still not healthy. He’s still sick. He gave it his all. It’s amazing what he’s doing. He’s throwing 100, 101 mph. We will be saying this every year about Shohei Ohtani until he retires. He’s a unicorn. He pitched great. Everything he had in that fourth inning to get out of it.”
Ohtani was scratched from his previous turn Wednesday due to a cough, and manager Dave Roberts had projected that the five-time All-Star would pitch fewer than five innings Friday.
“I was able to get my high-intensity catch play in yesterday, so I felt pretty good chiming in today,” Ohtani said through an interpreter. “I was contacted around 2 o’clock and was told if I could potentially start today.
“I actually felt really good coming into the game today. Probably the worst I felt was Game 1 and Game 2 in Pittsburgh. I started to feel a lot better my last day in Pittsburgh.”
The two-way superstar threw five innings of two-hit ball his last time out on Aug. 27, allowing one run with nine strikeouts for his first win of the season in a 5-1 decision over the Cincinnati Reds.
Roberts saw Ohtani’s pitch count rising in the fourth and decided to go get him.
“Initially, I was thinking four [innings] and 60 [pitches] for him. He was north of that,” Roberts said. “Even leading up to the fourth inning there was a lot of stress and a lot of high-velocity pitches. For me, I’m not going to risk him just to get another hitter where we have a guy that’s fresh that I felt needs to be able to get those lefties out. If it was a normal situation where it wasn’t short notice, then I would’ve let him get that hitter. We will have time to push him [later this season].”
Glasnow felt discomfort late Thursday night when the team plane landed. The back issue cropped up when he arrived at the ballpark and the right-hander is day-to-day, Roberts said.
“I think it’s just more of trusting the player and also knowing that he wants to be out there and feeling like we got ahead of it early,” Roberts said. “It’s not something that we got to a point where he’s hurt. It’s back stiffness. We feel like to not take this start will allow him to be able to start hopefully early next week.”
Ohtani batted leadoff Friday as the designated hitter again, and Roberts said the three-time MVP wanted to be a critical piece to ending the club’s slide.
“Shohei, to his credit, wants to pick us up,” Roberts said. “I really admire him for that.”
All-Star catcher Will Smith still has some swelling in his right hand and did not play. Roberts believes Smith will have to play through the bone bruise for the rest of the season.
