BALTIMORE — Take two for what ails you.
Shohei Ohtani homered in each of his first two at-bats Sunday afternoon. And if that wasn’t enough to treat the Dodgers’ persistent headaches, Clayton Kershaw struck out a season-high eight and took a shutout into the sixth inning as the Dodgers snapped their five-game losing streak with a 5-2 victory over the Baltimore Orioles.
For most of the game, it looked like the kind of dismissive victory that should have been a staple of this week’s tour of baseball’s less fortunate. The Orioles did make it uncomfortable in the later innings. But the Dodgers held on to go 1-5 in Pittsburgh and Baltimore, returning home with their lead in the National League West intact nonetheless.
Reeling from back-to-back walkoff defeats – including Saturday’s disintegrating no-hitter – Ohtani started to put that behind them when he led off the game with a 411-foot home run off Orioles starter Tomoyuki Sugano.
It was Ohtani’s 12th leadoff home run of the season, tying Mookie Betts’ franchise record (set in 2023). It is also the third most all-time behind Kyle Schwarber’s record 15 last year and Alfonso Soriano’s 13 in 2003.
Two innings later, Ohtani launched another solo home run off Sugano for his 22nd career multi-home run game (fourth this season). Betts followed with another home run, the second time this season Ohtani and Betts have gone back-to-back.
A scratch run in the fourth inning – singles by Miguel Rojas and Hyeseong Kim, a stolen base and a wild pickoff throw – gave the Dodgers a 4-0 lead and delusions of cruising to victory without any drama.
The way Kershaw was pitching through five innings, those thoughts were justified. He retired 11 of the first 12 batters he faced and struck out three in a row before the Orioles’ first hit of the game, a two-out single by Emmanuel Rivera in the fourth inning.
Completing his 30-for-30 by making his first career start at Oriole Park at Camden Yards, Kershaw’s curveball and slider were as sharp as they have been this season. He got 16 swings-and-misses in the game, 14 on those pitches (nine on the slider, five on the curveball).
After retiring the first two batters in the sixth, though, he gave up a single to Gunnar Henderson and an RBI double to Rivera. The Dodgers have handled the 37-year-old with care this season and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts pulled him after 5 ⅔ innings and 83 pitches.
Asking the bullpen to get one out Saturday night was too much, Roberts was asking for 10 this time.
Edgardo Henriquez gave up an RBI double to Alex Jackson before getting the final out of the sixth inning. Two hits put the tying runs on base with one out in the seventh but Justin Wrobleski struck out Jeremiah Jackson and Ryan Mountcastle then struck out the side in the eighth, getting favorable calls to finish off Henderson (on the 10th pitch of the at-bat) and Alex Jackson.
The offense added some insurance in the top of the ninth inning on Ben Rortvedt’s single, Ohtani’s third walk of the game, and an RBI single off the wall by Betts.
That made it easier for Jack Dreyer with only the third save by a Dodgers reliever since August 3.