LOS ANGELES — Blake Snell had already thrown a season-high 107 pitches. He had walked his last two batters. Manager Dave Roberts came to the mound, pondering whether to hand the ball to Alex Vesia for the final out of the seventh inning.
Snell thought he had one more in him. After a brief exchange, Roberts agreed.
Several moments later, Snell got Otto Kemp to swing through a perfectly placed fastball for his season-high 12th strikeout of the game to end the inning. Snell let out a roar on the mound. Roberts pumped his fist in the dugout. All around them, Dodger Stadium erupted in elation.
“I was excited,” Snell said. “I don’t like the bullpen finishing my innings. I’m very adamant about that. I don’t want them in that situation. I put myself in this, I can pitch my way out of it.”
Snell’s seven scoreless innings led the Dodgers to a 5-0 win over the Phillies on Wednesday night, salvaging the finale of the three-game set at Dodger Stadium. Freddie Freeman and Shohei Ohtani homered, and Ben Rortvedt and Kiké Hernández also had run-scoring knocks to back the gem.
After dropping the series, the Dodgers’ chances of snagging a first-round postseason bye are slim. The Phillies have a lead of 5 1/2 games in the NL standings, plus the tiebreaker advantage. That likely will hold up with 10 games left to play.
Should the Dodgers retain their two-game lead over the Padres in the NL West and emerge victorious from a Wild Card Series, in all likelihood, their path back to the World Series would run through Philadelphia.
This week’s series at Dodger Stadium showed that the Dodgers have some of the right ingredients to do well in a potential NL Division Series against the Phillies. Their starting pitching was dominant. Their offense continued to show life. The sore spot is the bullpen, which rebounded Wednesday with two scoreless innings in relief of Snell.
After Emmet Sheehan followed an opener with 5 2/3 innings of one-run ball on Monday and Shohei Ohtani twirled five hitless innings on Tuesday, Snell capped another strong series for the rotation. Through his first six innings, the only baserunners he allowed were a pair of singles in the third.
After getting two quick outs to open the seventh, Snell walked Nick Castellanos, ticking his pitch count up past 100. Then followed another walk to Max Kepler.
“Stuff was as good as it was,” said Rortvedt, Snell’s catcher. “I think he just didn’t want to give in to those two hitters. Those hitters’ counts, kind of trying to get them to wave below the zone.”
That prompted a visit from Roberts.
As Roberts joined Snell on the mound, Vesia was already starting to jog in from the home bullpen. But a few words from Snell turned both Roberts and Vesia around.
“‘Please, keep me in. I got it,'” Snell recounted later. “It meant a lot that he trusted me.”
Said Roberts: “He was adamant he wanted that last hitter. And I trusted him. And he finished him off the right way. Just a huge boost for us. Just a great performance from pitch one. We needed this one tonight. And he delivered.”
In the first two games of the series, the Dodgers were in a good position to win for as long as the starting pitchers stayed in. But the team’s relievers gave up a combined 14 runs in 8 1/3 innings (including Anthony Banda, Monday’s opener, but excluding Sheehan).
The ‘pen had to cover only two innings on Wednesday, and Vesia and Tanner Scott took care of business.
Despite losing the series, the Dodgers came away with a good sense of how they matched up with a Phillies team they could very well see 2 1/2 weeks down the road in the postseason.
The rotation continued to excel against a deep lineup. The bats were able to produce against three good starters in Ranger Suárez, Cristopher Sánchez and Jesús Luzardo, and got to the Phillies’ bullpen at points, as well.
If the Dodgers’ bullpen begins to perform better in the final days of the regular season, the team could be collectively rounding into form at the right time.
“In totality, I thought we played really good baseball,” Roberts said. “I thought the offense was fantastic. I thought the defense was great. And we just had a few bad innings that cost us a series. But I like our chances, if we play like this, against anyone.”
