LOS ANGELES — Earlier this month with the Dodgers’ offense underperforming, Freddie Freeman said the team’s offense was “inevitable.” Monday night, it was just fashionably late.
Held to six hits through the first eight innings and trailing by two in the bottom of the ninth, the Dodgers scored three times for a 5-4 comeback victory over the Miami Marlins.
Protecting a 4-2 lead, Marlins closer Pete Fairbanks lit the fire himself before leaving with an injury. He walked Andy Pages and Dalton Rushing to start the ninth. After Miguel Rojas popped up a bunt, Shohei Ohtani lashed his third hit of the night, a ground-rule double into the seats down the right-field line.
The tying runs would have scored if the ball stayed in play. Instead, one scored and Dalton Rushing was held at third. After Freeman was intentionally walked to load the bases, Will Smith struck out and Kyle Tucker got to play the hero, sending a two-run walk-off single through the middle.
The ninth-inning heroics rescued a night when Yoshinobu Yamamoto wasn’t himself. He walked the leadoff hitter to start the game but got a double play to erase that. In the third inning, he gave up a two-out single to the No. 9 hitter, Connor Norby, and a double to Jakob Marsee, stranding both when he got Kyle Stowers to fly out.
In the fourth, things got even more complicated. He gave up a leadoff double to Otto Lopez then walked Xavier Edwards. After a strikeout, Agustin Ramirez singled to load the bases with one out.
A pitch-clock violation on Owen Caissie got Yamamoto a strikeout and he was nearly out of the inning when Javier Sanoja bounced a ground ball into the hole at shortstop. Hyeseong Kim fielded it but it popped out of his glove. By the time he gathered the ball back in and threw to first base, Sanoja was safe and a run had scored.
Yamamoto walked two more in the fifth inning for a season-high four in just five innings. When a 1-and-2 splitter stayed up over the plate, Liam Hicks hooked it into the seats down the right-field line for a three-run home run.
Yamamoto was done after that inning, his shortest start of the season and shortest regular-season start since last Aug. 11. The four walks and four runs allowed were his most since that same start against the Angels (five walks in 4⅔ innings).
More to come on this story.