LOS ANGELES — After years of holding down two jobs, Shohei Ohtani might like putting in fewer hours.
Given an unexpected day off on Thursday, Ohtani responded with two extra-base hits, including a two-run home run in the fifth inning Friday night that temporarily flipped the score in the Dodgers’ favor.
Ohtani also had a double and scored two runs. On his three work days this week – Tuesday and Wednesday against the Seattle Mariners and Friday against the Red Sox – Ohtani went 7 for 12 with two home runs, three doubles, six RBIs and four runs scored.
But the night’s real temp worker – Cole Irvin – called up from Triple-A to eat up innings on a ‘bullpen day,’ gave up five runs in a seventh inning he should never have seen and the Dodgers sank to a 9-4 loss to the red-hot Boston Red Sox.
“He did what he could,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said of Irvin. “You have to sometimes take it on the chin to then give yourself a chance to win the series. That’s kind of what you have to do. Never feels good when you’re in it. But that’s what you have to do. And then, catching a lead I thought was great. But yeah, I mean, I think that five-run inning kind of did us in right there.
“Like I said, it never feels good in it. … But you just can’t chase every single win, every single night. It’s not responsible. It’s just not the right process.”
Dropping Ohtani from the pitching rotation put the Dodgers in this position. Based on recent usage, Roberts said he only had two relievers available — Alex Vesia and Evan Phillips — after Edgardo Henriquez and Will Klein pitched.
“It is hard. But there’s a few guys down in our bullpen,” said Freddie Freeman who had his fourth three-hit game in the past eight games. “It’s just kind of the nature of the beast of a 162-game schedule with nine games in a row. It’s kind of how it is. But if we had scored more runs, we would’ve had Vesia and all them coming into the game. It’s on us to score more runs and we just didn’t do it today.”
Irvin, a former Servite High standout was left in to throw 102 pitches over six innings Friday, joining previous fashion victims – they were left to ‘wear it’ in baseball slang – Matt Sauer and Charlie Barnes (if you know, you know).
And he walked away with the most grateful 9.00 ERA in baseball history. Friday was his first big-league appearance since Sept. 2024 with the Minnesota Twins after an unsuccessful season spent in Korea.
“Part of the job. I signed up to be a Major League Baseball player, and some nights aren’t going to go your way. And you just got to be able to take it on the lip and keep going,” he said of being left in to absorb innings. “I can sit here and smile because all the work that I put into my season so far got me this opportunity, and I’m not going to let anything get in the way of the joy that I have right now. And yeah, it sucks to lose, but at the same time, I earned this opportunity.”
Bullpen games can be done in by their weakest link. Will Klein looked like that link early Friday.
Klein came on in the second inning and gave up an unearned run set up by a walk and his own error on a wild pickoff throw. Jarren Duran singled the run in.
In the third inning, Klein gave up back-to-back singles, struck out Wilyer Abreu, then hit Willson Contreras in the back of the helmet with a 95 mph fastball. Contreras stayed in the game long enough to run the bases but did not go back out on defense.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts had seen enough at that point and pulled Klein for Irvin, making his first MLB appearance since Sept. 2024 with the Minnesota Twins. Two runs scored when Freddie Freeman misplayed Masataka Yoshida’s chopped ground ball to his right.
Klein has been in freefall over his past six appearances. He has given up at least one run in each of the six, 13 runs in all (though only eight were earned runs). Opposing batters are 9 for 30 (.300) in that time and Klein has walked eight, hit a batter and thrown a wild pitch in 6⅓ innings.
“That’s a good question. We’re still trying to dig into it,” Roberts said when asked to explain the second half de-Klein. “I thought there were some good fastball throws in there tonight, but the secondary stuff, that’s kind of what’s getting him. The sweeper is not a strike; is not getting chase from it. The curveball has a different shape to it than it did last year. So I don’t know if it’s an arm thing, a mechanics thing, but that’s something we’re trying to dig in on.”
The Dodgers’ offense absorbed that, grabbing a 4-3 lead on Ohtani’s 112.1 mph laser home run in the fifth.
“Like I said last night, I still think that it’s kind of a day-to-day, read and react, and see how he is,” Roberts said of the lessened workload for Ohtani. “I can’t sit here tonight and just say, ‘Okay, he’s going to be down on Sunday or Monday.’ But I think with any player, for the most part, some rest and feeling fresh isn’t always a bad thing.”
Irvin handled things well enough for three innings and took that one-run lead into the seventh.
But he committed the cardinal sin of walking the leadoff man in the inning then left a changeup over the plate on his first pitch to Ceddane Rafaela. Rafaela sent it on a 400-foot journey to give the lead back to the Red Sox.
With the Dodgers’ bullpen as devoid of life as Neptune, the Red Sox piled on to win for the 21st time in their past 24 games. Irvin gave up four more hits in the inning, hit a batter and walked a batter while giving up five runs – then went back out for the eighth and ninth innings. Roberts finally pulled Irvin with one out in the ninth and let Phillips finish the inning.