BALTIMORE — Tanner Scott might have underestimated the situation. Baseball doesn’t seem to like any of the Dodgers right now.
Even a near no-hitter wasn’t enough to lift the Dodgers out of their downward spiral. Yoshinobu Yamamoto came up one out short of that no-hitter and the Dodgers couldn’t get an out with him, losing for the fifth consecutive game to a last-place team when Scott gave up a walkoff hit for the second night in a row. This time, Emmanuel Rivera’s two-run single gave the Baltimore Orioles a 4-3 victory Saturday night.
“Yeah, baseball’s crazy,” Ben Rortvedt said — and he’s only been with the Dodgers for the past three days.
Yamamoto gave up a solo home run to Jackson Holliday with two outs in the ninth inning to end his bid to throw the 24th no-hitter in franchise history and the Dodgers’ first since Walker Buehler combined with three relievers to no-hit the San Diego Padres in Monterrey, Mexico, on May 4, 2018.
Yamamoto would have been the third Japanese-born pitcher to pitch a no-hitter in MLB, joining Hideo Nomo, who threw two (one with the Dodgers in 1996 and one with the Boston Red Sox in 2001) and Hisashi Iwakuma with the Seattle Mariners (in 2015). Oddly, three of those four no-hitters came against the Orioles. Nomo’s no-hitter with the Dodgers came against the Colorado Rockies.
The one-run loss was the Dodgers’ 13th in their past 19 close calls.
“Obviously it’s really hard to swallow,” Yamamoto said of the loss through his interpreter. “But the only thing we can do is we’ve got to get together, put things together, and overcome it.”
Yamamoto put his foot down from the start. He retired the first six Orioles batters in order but walked back-to-back hitters to start the third inning, throwing a wild pitch along the way.
Not a problem. He struck out Coby Mayo with a curveball, then got Holliday to bounce into an inning-ending double play.
Making his first start for the Dodgers, Rortvedt said he started to realize what Yamamoto had going in the fifth or sixth inning and “everyone started to kind of stay away from him from the sixth” as is baseball superstition.
“I think I was just so focused on trying to be on the same page with him that I kind of got lost in it,” Rortvedt said.
Because it was Rortvedt’s first start, Yamamoto wore the PitchCom device and called his own pitches.
“We bounced some things back and forth in the dugout. He wore the PitchCom tonight,” Rortvedt said. “I wanted him to have conviction with his pitches and he definitely had that tonight.”
After the back-to-back walks, Yamamoto retired the next 19 Orioles in order, getting the ball for the ninth inning despite throwing 104 pitches through the first eight.
“I just felt he deserved the chance to get a no-hitter,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I felt that the guys were feeling it for him, were pulling for him. And I wanted it bad for him. I did.”
Yamamoto struck out Alex Jackson to start the ninth then got Coby Mayo on a fly ball to center field. But he fell behind 2-and-1 to Holliday and left a cutter on the inside edge of the strike zone. It was the 112th pitch of the night for Yamamoto (his MLB career-high by two) and his only mistake. Holliday sent a fly ball to right field that hit the top of the wall for a homer.
“I think the cutter was not necessarily that bad,” Yamamoto said. “The location wasn’t bad. His swing, he just put a good swing on it.”
Yamamoto made the pitch call himself, Rortvedt said.
“Two-and-one, we got in a situation where we’d pitched arm side a lot away. Trying to pitch in,” Rortvedt said. “He called cutter and I thought it was a good pitch. He had conviction in it and I think he hit his spot too. (Holliday) didn’t get all of it but he got enough to poke it out.”
Yamamoto struck out 10 and got 20 swings-and-misses in all – nine on a four-seam fastball that had added life, averaging 96.6 mph (up from a season average of 95.2 mph).
“He was fantastic tonight — beyond,” said Roberts who went to pull Yamamoto from the game after the Holliday home run.
“I just told him he did a fantastic job and to tip his cap to the fans, because they were cheering for him in that ninth inning.”
Things got messy after he left.
Blake Treinen replaced Yamamoto with one out to get – and couldn’t get it. After Holliday’s home run, Treinen came in and gave up a double to Jeremiah Jackson and hit Gunnar Henderson with a pitch. He walked Ryan Mountcastle on five pitches to load the bases and Colton Cowser on five more to force in a run.
“There’s really no words,” Treinen said. “You’re paid to be a professional and at least throw strikes, and I didn’t do that. Cost one of the better outings I’ve ever seen in my career with Yama. He deserves better than that. Offense deserves better than that. Just really sucks to be on that end of it.
“I put Tanner in a tough position to come in, where he’s key-holed to have to throw strikes, great pitches, and big-league hitters are gonna find a way to move runners. That’s a pretty low point for me, coming off the heels of kind of a tough stretch right here. But I’ve got to be better. … I have to get one flipping out, and I didn’t do it.”
Treinen’s wayward command forced Roberts to bring in Scott, who gave up a walkoff home run with two outs in the ninth inning for Friday night’s loss.
“I think when Blake started losing command, you kind of try to feel that he’s done it many times over, that he can get an out, regardless of handedness,” Roberts said. “He’s been our best reliever for quite some time. So you’ve got to give him some leash. I gave him some leash to secure the game.”
Scott’s third pitch was a fastball well below the strike zone. But Rivera stroked into center field to end the game.
“We’ve been in a little bit of rut lately,” said Yamamoto who tried to pitch them out of that rut. “We are working hard and we’ve got to overcome this hard time.”