Yoshinobu Yamamoto was not at his most efficient Thursday night.
Which meant, even though he pitched 5⅓ scoreless innings against the San Francisco Giants, he left the fate of the game to the Dodgers’ shaky bullpen.
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So often on nights like these recently, such a scenario would be a recipe for disaster. Given the way things have been going for the Dodgers’ unreliable relief corps — which entered the night with a 5.65 ERA in September — anything more than a few innings has felt like a big ask.
This time, however, the Dodgers’ relievers found a way to grind things out.
No, Michael Kopech still didn’t have his command. And no, Blake Treinen still didn’t look like himself.
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But when they needed to most, the Dodgers’ relievers executed pitches. In a 2-1 win at Dodger Stadium, they did enough to stretch the team’s National League West division lead to three games.
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“It feels like these are the ones we’ve been coming up short in lately, so to win these one-run ball games, that’s big for us,” first baseman Freddie Freeman said. “Hopefully we can feed off that in the bullpen. They’re a huge part of what we’re gonna be able to do in October. So we got all the confidence in the world in them. And it was nice to see them have a good night.”
Yamamoto did not make their life easy.
Though he yielded only one hit, the recently streaking right-hander fell back into a bad habit of being “too fine,” as manager Dave Roberts described it, with his command. He set a career-high with six walks. He found the zone on only 60 of 108 pitches. And though Roberts tried to push him through the sixth inning, his pitch count got too high.
On a night the Dodgers (86-67) managed only two runs off Giants ace Logan Webb — both of which came in a sixth-inning rally keyed by a Shohei Ohtani double, Freeman RBI single and dropped ball at the plate by Giants catcher Patrick Bailey — the bullpen was forced to pick up the slack.
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Things started well with Jack Dreyer, who inherited a runner from Yamamoto with one out in the sixth and stranded it in the span of 11 pitches.
The seventh inning, however, quickly became an adventure, with two of the Dodgers’ most veteran relief arms putting themselves in a world of danger.
It started with Kopech, and his continued struggles to locate the ball since returning from a midseason knee injury. The hard-throwing right-hander walked his first two batters, with a (very, very) wild pitch in between. He bounced back to strike out Drew Gilbert for the inning’s first out. But by that point, he had issued eight total walks over his last four outings, recording only eight outs in that span while throwing 50 balls to 45 strikes.
Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto delivers during the third inning against the Giants on Thursday. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Thus, Roberts went back to the mound, bringing Treinen in to try and put out the fire.
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Like Kopech, Treinen has battled uncharacteristic inconsistencies lately. He was the culprit when the Dodgers squandered Yamamoto’s near no-hitter in Baltimore earlier this month. He gave up a game-ending, three-run homer to the Philadelphia Phillies’ backup catcher two nights prior.
On Thursday, the right-hander seemed poised to blow another lead.
He also walked his first two batters, loading the bases on the first and forcing home a run with the next (when home plate umpire Ryan Wills squeezed him on a full-count cutter at the top of the zone). The count went full to Willy Adames in the following at-bat, leaving Treinen one ball away from another disaster.
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That, however, is when the script flipped.
Treinen dotted a sinker on the outside corner to Adames to strike him out looking. He snapped off his trademark sweeper to fan Matt Chapman and retire the side.
In recent days, Roberts has emphasized the need for his bullpen to cling to whatever moments of confidence they can find. Given that the team’s 2-1 lead was preserved in the seventh, the otherwise ugly inning still qualified as a building block.
“I think that he’s trending [upward], and we’re going to need him,” Roberts said of Treinen. “He’s in the circle of trust, and he’s just got to find ways to regain the confidence. … Getting out of that jam was a big confidence boost.
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After that, the Dodgers recorded the final six outs with ease.
Anthony Banda went 1-2-3 in the eighth inning. Alex Vesia picked up the save with a clean frame in the ninth.
Dodgers baserunner Ben Rortvedt slides safely into home plate after Giants catcher Patrick Bailey loses the ball. (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 miles up the Pacific Coast, the team saw positive signs from another potential bullpen option. In a triple-A game in Tacoma, Wash., Roki Sasaki came out of the bullpen to retire three of the four batters he faced with two strikeouts, one walk and a fastball that topped out at 100.1 mph. Sasaki will make another triple-A relief outing Sunday, could rejoin the Dodgers’ big-league roster next week and remains in contention for a postseason roster spot.
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“Tonight he performed. He was really good. And let’s see it again on Sunday,” Roberts said. “Then it kind of puts the onus on the organization to make a decision.”
Trade deadline acquisition Brock Stewart is also on his way back from a shoulder injury; although he followed Sasaki in OKC’s game on Thursday by giving up four unearned runs on a single, walk and hit-by-pitch in ⅔ of an inning. Still, at this stage, the Dodgers will take whatever reinforcements they can get.
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After all, the team’s lineup is finally manufacturing runs. Their rotation has continued its late-season surge since getting healthy. Entering the final nine games of the season, the bullpen is the team’s last glaring question. And for one night at Chavez Ravine, they did enough to secure a win.
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“It’s big,” Freeman said. “You can build off it. It’s just like how hitting is contagious, you can feed off each other in the bullpen.”
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
