LOS ANGELES — Give one up, hit one out … take one away.
There are three direct interactions that players can have with a home run ball, and the Dodgers managed the trifecta in Monday’s 5-2 win over the Twins. Shohei Ohtani took care of the first two, and James Outman handled the latter.
Ohtani was on both sides of the long ball in the first inning, surrendering a leadoff home run to Byron Buxton before crushing a two-run blast a Statcast-projected 441 feet to straightaway center. Before then, no pitcher had both given up and hit a homer in the first inning of the same game since the Phillies’ Randy Lerch on May 17, 1979, against the Cubs.
Later, in the ninth inning, Kirby Yates took over for an injured Tanner Scott and nearly surrendered a game-tying three-run shot to Carlos Correa — only for Outman to leap at the center-field wall and snag the would-be homer, cuing up “I Love L.A.” to the relief of an anxious home crowd.
“Correa’s a heck of a player, and he put a good swing on it,” manager Dave Roberts said. “We were fortunate that we got some moisture in the air tonight that it just didn’t carry out. We dodged one there.”
The Dodgers hit four homers in all — also getting two from Will Smith and one from Andy Pages — to notch their first win after the All-Star break, snapping a three-game skid.
Ohtani’s sixth start on the mound this season got off to an inauspicious start when he hung a second-pitch sweeper to Buxton, who sent it sailing into the seats in left-center. It was the first homer (and first extra-base hit) this season hit off Ohtani, who had not allowed a run in eight innings since his first start on the mound.
“It was just my mistake,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. “A really good hitter like him makes you pay for it.”
But unlike other pitchers, Ohtani can provide his own run support. After newly minted leadoff hitter Mookie Betts drew a walk to open the bottom of the first, Ohtani pummeled a changeup from Twins starter David Festa at 113.4 mph off the bat for his 35th homer of the season.
Ohtani has hit five career first-inning homers as a pitcher. No other pitcher in Major League history has more than two.
“That’s like, as a kid, you give up a homer and you go back in the dugout and say, ‘I’m about to get that back,’” Buxton said. “That’s literally like that moment. I didn’t want it to be against us, but that was crazy. It was wild.”
While the Twins hit the ball hard across Ohtani’s outing — eight of the 11 balls in play off him were hit 97.5 mph or faster — the Dodgers’ two-way superstar limited the damage to Buxton’s leadoff shot. Ohtani threw 46 pitches to complete three innings for the second straight outing, striking out three and allowing four hits and a walk.
“A lot of mistakes over the plate, especially with two strikes. The execution of it,” Ohtani said. “And I should have been expanded, but it was thrown at places where hitters could hit it.”
Dustin May followed Ohtani and pitched 4 2/3 scoreless innings on 100 pitches in his first relief appearance since 2020. His next outing is expected to come as a traditional starter.
Now that Ohtani has cleared the three-inning mark in back-to-back starts, he’s expected to up his workload in his next outing on the mound. He’ll likely pitch four innings in each of his next two pitching appearances, after which he’ll essentially be built up to make full-length starts.
In Ohtani’s previous start as a pitcher, the Dodgers snapped a season-high seven-game losing streak in San Francisco. They ended a shorter skid behind him on Monday. Roberts described it as “willing” the team to a win.
“There’s just an extra level of focus I see in the decision-making at the plate,” Robert said. “I’ve mentioned before that he has a different kind of edge when he’s on the mound, versus in the batter’s box. And he understands where we’re at, and he’s really doing a good job of doing his part.”
