Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers’ bullpen combine for near no-hitter in victory over Rockies

LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani almost became the most unhappy pitcher to ever be part of throwing a no-hitter.

Ohtani walked four batters, hit another and gave up a run – but allowed no hits through six innings against the Colorado Rockies on Wednesday night. He matched that run with a leadoff home run and the Dodgers’ bullpen took the combined no-hitter into the eighth inning before Tanner Scott gave up a single with two outs. That was the only hit the Dodgers allowed in a 4-1 victory, their fifth straight win and their 12th in the past 14 games.

No other pitcher in MLB’s modern era (post 1906) has both hit a leadoff home run and pitched six innings or more without allowing a hit – in their entire career, let alone in the same game (per OptaStats).

“I was just battling the lack of command I had throughout the night,” Ohtani said through his interpreter, still dissatisfied after the game.

“Just way too many walks, and of course you wanna avoid the hits, but the result of that was a lot of walks today, and that’s something that I just don’t really want to do.”

The win completed a sweep of the Rockies but came with a cost. For the second night in a row, the Dodgers lost a player to an injury. Teoscar Hernandez clutched at his left hamstring after running out a ground ball in the second inning. He returned to the dugout in obvious pain and left the game with a strained hamstring.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Hernandez will get an MRI on Thursday but “obviously it’s an IL” stay.

“There’s just no timeline,” Roberts said. “But something like that obviously is going to be a few weeks at the minimum. But disappointing. He’s been playing so well and he’s a big part of what we’re doing. So to lose him for any length of time is not great.”

The Dodgers are likely to call up Ryan Ward from Triple-A Oklahoma City and left field will become a time-share arrangement between the left-handed Ward and right-handed Alex Call.

Meanwhile, Ohtani continues to make a point about hitting and pitching in the same game. It was the second start in a row that Ohtani rewarded the Dodgers for letting him also hit while pitching by hitting a leadoff home run. He took Rockies starter Tomoyuki Sugano 424 feet over the wall in center field to start the first inning. Two batters later, Freddie Freeman also took Sugano deep.

Staked to an early lead, Ohtani never seemed to settle in and needed 99 pitches to get through his six innings. That made it a relatively obvious call for Roberts to go to the bullpen in the seventh.

It was the 10th time in his managerial career that Roberts pulled a pitcher with a no-hitter going in the fifth inning or later – a list that includes two seven-inning perfect games (Rich Hill in 2016 and Clayton Kershaw in 2022), a combined no-hitter (Walker Buehler only went six innings in the 2018 no-hitter) and, most recently, Ohtani after five innings last Sept. 16.

“I think I could’ve pitched deeper into the game if I give up hits,” Ohtani said. “Just the walks lead to shorter outings. And I would rather take the days where I get hit a little bit but still be efficient rather than walking and just not being able to pitch deeper into the game.”

Ohtani’s frustration with his poor command was caught on the field microphones early in Wednesday’s game – documenting Ohtani’s fluency in at least one aspect of English.

“The takeaway, if any, the positive, is that they didn’t really have any hard hits, and that’s the positive,” Ohtani said.

The closest the Rockies came to a hit in six innings against Ohtani was Troy Johnston’s line drive to right field, leading off the second inning. The ball was hooking away from Alex Call but he made a diving catch.

For the second consecutive pitching start, Ohtani was essentially a two-pitch pitcher, throwing his four-seam fastball and sweeper about 80% of the time, apparently not comfortable enough with the rest of his five-pitch arsenal (curveball, splitter, two-seam fastball) to throw any of them more than a handful of times.

“No specific reason,” Ohtani said of the streamlined pitch mix. “I’ve been throwing more sweepers against left(-handed hitters) intentionally, and I think because it was more of a lefty-heavy lineup, it just ended up that way. I did mix in some curveballs, splits, early in the year against lefties, but in general, I think, because it was a lefty-hitting lineup, the sweeper usage went up.”

Ohtani’s poor command led to a hitless run for the Rockies in the fourth inning.

Ohtani walked TJ Rumfield to start the inning then hit Hunter Goodman with a 2-and-0, two-seam fastball. Troy Johnston bounced into a force out that moved Rumfield to third base. He scored when Willi Castro bounced a ground ball over first baseman Freddie Freeman’s head. Second baseman Alex Freeland grabbed it and dove to beat Castro to first base for the out, but Rumfield trotted home on the play.

That ended a scoreless innings streak for Ohtani at 19 (and was only the fifth earned run he has allowed in nine pitching starts and 55 innings this season).

“Tonight, (last week) against the Padres, it’s just for me, the fastball command wasn’t there,” Roberts said. “At times, when it gets stressful, he makes pitches when needs to. But then there’s some kind of uncharacteristic walks in there and getting into bad counts. But when it gets stressful he makes pitches when he needs to. I think tonight it was just the fastball command, he just didn’t feel good about it.”

Ohtani walked the first batter in the fifth inning but retired the next six in order, finishing his night with seven strikeouts and 14 swings-and-misses (nine on his fastball, four on his sweeper and one on a curveball) but only 56 strikes in his 99 pitches.

It was the third time in his career Ohtani has taken a no-hitter through six innings.

Will Klein replaced Ohtani and got through the seventh despite an error by Max Muncy at third base. Scott came on in the eighth inning and struck out the first two Rockies he faced. But Tyler Freeman lined a 1-and-2 fastball through the right side of the infield for a clean single.

“We pitched well. We pitched really well, and it would’ve been nice,” Roberts said of the lost no-hit bid. “It would’ve been nice, but we’ll take the win.”

Andy Pages led off the bottom of the eighth with the Dodgers’ third home run of the game and Kyle Hurt closed it out in the ninth for his first big-league save.

“I had no idea it happened,” Hurt said of the 7⅔ innings of no-hit baseball in front of him. “Until the hit happened, I didn’t know. I saw the score and I just thought they got a couple hits, and Ves (Alex Vesia) told me. … I was kind of shocked, but it was cool to see.”