The Dodgers beat the Padres in Ohtani’s return to the big league mound
The Padres scored a run off Shohei Ohtani in the first, but the best player in the world has the ability to fix his mistakes. Ohtani’s RBI double in the third briefly tied up this game. A couple of innings later, he was once again involved in the scoring with an RBI knock as the Dodgers rallied around Dylan Cease for five runs in the fourth to take a commanding lead they’d never relinquish, winning this 6-3.
Unlike the last time out, the Dodgers were able to capitalize on what has been a pretty disappointing campaign for Cease and punished the Padres’ ace for his sixth loss of the year. While Ohtani’s bat was pivotal to this win with a couple of runs batted in, the focal point of this entire game was his return to the mound.
While acknowledging the short leash he had to begin with, Ohtani actually got a bit of leeway to navigate through some trouble in the first, and did so, flashing the absolutely outstanding stuff to begin with. Ultimately, the reigning NL MVP tossed 28 pitches, which in an ideal world would amount to two clean innings. The Padres managed to get a run on him on a sacrifice fly, but it had little to no impact in the game, with the offense pounding on Cease for a relatively stress-free victory.
In discussing Ohtani’s sole inning of work, I’d like to focus on a few sinkers he threw, particularly a 1-1 dotted pitch on the inside corner to earn a strike against Luis Arraez. The thing about Ohtani and sinkers is that he didn’t have that pitch until one day in the big leagues, he just decided to show he could throw a pretty good one.
It’s one inning in his first game back, and so we take it all with a grain of salt, but the sinker usage is definitely something to keep an eye on. Ohtani tossed that pitch only six percent of the time in 2023 (the last time he pitched), and in his Dodger debut, he threw eight of them out of a total of 28 pitches.
A mix of being amped up for his return and also maybe cutting it loose, knowing he had a short leash, Ohtani averaged over 99 mph on his four-seamer. For context, the average velocity on Ohtani’s four-seam fastball the last time he pitched was 96.8 mph.
Navigating the unique situation of a rehabbing starter also a key part of the lineup, Ohtani’s role as a starting pitcher that gets slowly built up in MLB games seems like an ideal path for the reigning NL MVP.
Normally, a very stoic presence in the batter’s box, Ohtani also showed emotions on the mound that we normally don’t see from him. Firstly, he was visibly frustrated with a no-swing call on a check swing from Manny Machado that would’ve gotten him his first strikeout. A bit later on in that at bat with the runners at the corners, Machado hit a sac-fly, and Ohtani celebrated what he thought was an out at the plate, only to then notice the umpire called the runner safe.
A bit of note about this one is that things got a bit testy when Cease hit Andy Pages in the middle of that decisive fourth-inning rally, but nothing escalated from that point.
Monday particulars
Home run: Manny Machado (11)
WP — Ben Casparius (5-1): 3⅔ IP, 3 hits, 2 runs, 1 walk, 2 strikeouts
LP — Dylan Cease (2-6): 5 IP, 8 hits, 6 runs, 1 walk, 9 strikeouts
Sv — Kirby Yates (2): 3 up, 3 down
Up next
The Dodgers have yet to announce their starter for Tuesday night (7:10 p.m.; SportsNet LA, TBS). But the bullpen is slotted for heavy usage against the Padres, who’ll send out Randy Vásquez.