Dodgers @ Giants September 12, 2025: Dodgers take four game win streak up north, Will Smith remains out of the lineup

The Dodgers (82-64) finally handled business in their last series, sweeping the Rockies in LA to finally see some success against a sub-.500 team. Unfortunately the Rockies continued losing last night in San Diego, so the Dodgers lead the NL West by 2.5 games and enter today 4.5 back of the Phillies for the 2-seed in the NL.

Today, they open up a three game set up north against the surging Giants. The Giants seemed dead in the water and mildly sold at the deadline, but have won 14 of their last 18 games (and in one stretch there won 11 of 12) to crawl back into the race. They’re still eight back of the Dodgers, but are only 1.5 back of the collapsing Mets for the final Wild Card spot entering today’s games. Tonight also starts a stretch of seven games in 10 days between the Dodgers and Giants, which should have pretty heavy playoff implications. Both series between the Dodgers and Giants have looked pretty similar, with the Giants winning the first games of the series before the Dodgers take the next two.

	7:15 P.M.		San Francisco
DH	Ohtani (L)	LF	Ramos
SS	Betts	DH	Devers (L)
1B	Freeman (L)	SS	Adames
3B	Muncy (L)	1B	Smith (L)
RF	T. Hernández	3B	Chapman
LF	Conforto (L)	CF	Lee (L)
CF	Pages	2B	Schmitt
2B	Edman (S)	C	Bailey (S)
C	Rortvedt (L)	RF	Gilbert (L)
P	Yamamoto (R)	P	Verlander (R)

Yoshinobu Yamamoto gets the ball today, and like do I even need to talk about his last start. Yama famously came an out away from a no-hitter and allowed a homer to Jackson Holliday to lose his bid. Nothing wild or bad happened after Yamamoto got pulled, surely the Dodger bullpen managed to get one out. It kicked off a pretty unbelievable week of starting pitching from the Dodgers, with Clayton Kershaw turning in the worst start of the last week (5 2/3 innings, two runs). Yamamoto’s 112 pitches was a new career-high and his 10 strikeouts matched a career-high. Yamamoto’s previous career-high in pitches was 110, and he followed up that start with a strong start in Cleveland. Six days after throwing 110 in seven innings, Yamamoto allowed two runs and three hits over six innings and was pulled after 88 pitches. Yamamoto got a start in both series against the Giants this season with very different results. He struggled in LA, allowing five runs, six hits and two homers over 4 2/3 innings. He started in San Francisco a month later and tossed seven shutout before Tanner Scott blew the save, but the Dodgers won in extras.

The Dodgers get their first look at Justin Verlander as a Giant. Verlander’s 4.09 ERA is the lowest it’s been since his first start of the season following a six-inning shutout in St. Louis last time out. Four of Verlander’s last seven starts have been scoreless, but he’s also gotten rocked twice in that time. He allowed five runs and 11 hits in five innings against the Nats on August 10 and allowed six runs on six hits in 4 1/3 innings in San Diego on the 21st. Verlander’s only allowed one homer in this stretch and while he hasn’t exactly faced a bunch of top-tier offenses, it’s still been a strong stretch for a guy that looked extremely washed a couple months ago. Somehow, the 20-year vet has only faced the Dodgers four times in the regular season in his career. The last time he saw the Dodgers was in 2023, when he allowed three runs and six(!) walks in five innings as a Met. The former Astro has seen Shohei Ohtani and Mookie Betts quite a bit in his career and has mostly dominated them. Ohtani is 5-for-23 with two homers and 10 strikeouts in 23 plate appearances against Verlander, and Betts is 1-for-19 with two walks and two strikeouts in 21 plate appearances.

The 42-year-old has seen a bit of a velocity uptick from last season, averaging 94.1 MPH on his fastball. He’s thrown it 46 percent of the time and has also thrown a slider (23.2 percent), curve (14.8 percent), change (9 percent), sweeper (6.5 percent) and has allegedly thrown eight sinkers. His fastball is his only offering with a sub-20 percent whiff rate (just barely at 19.1 percent).

Will Smith remains out of the lineup after being scratched before Wednesday’s game. Dalton Rushing is continuing his rehab at OKC and Chuckie Robinson is in the lineup so it doesn’t seem like any panic about it yet. He’s supposedly available off the bench if needed as his MRI came back clean and the swelling on his hand is down. Tommy Edman gets his second start back off the IL, starting at second with the normal outfield alignment.

——

Roki Sasaki is staying at OKC for at least one more turn.

Roki Sasaki will make at least one more start with triple-A Oklahoma City, Dave Roberts said.

— Bill Shaikin (@BillShaikin) September 13, 2025

Sasaki turned in a very encouraging start last time out, completely dominating for four innings before the wheels fell off a bit in the fifth. His velocity was up, he was getting whiffs (eight strikeouts after never getting more than five in his 12 starts in the Majors/AAA) and he only allowed three baserunners (two walks) over those first four innings. They’re also saying Sasaki was dealing with a bit of a calf issue in his last start, so his rehab has been extended past the max of 30 days because of that. He could return after his next start and could be back as a reliever (although like, why not just let him finish out the year strong in the Minors and start fresh next season).

——

Ohtani’s being skipped for the series in SF, but will start one of the first two games against the Phillies.

Shohei Ohtani will pitch either Monday or Tuesday against the Phillies, Dave Roberts said.

— Fabian Ardaya (@FabianArdaya) September 13, 2025

Emmet Sheehan would be on normal rest on Monday and would have an extra day on Tuesday. If Ohtani starts Tuesday, he’d potentially have only one start left after that one. If he starts Monday and they maintain the six-man rotation even with their one remaining off day, Ohtani would be lined up to start the final game of the regular season.

——

First pitch is scheduled for 7:15 PM PT and will be on SportsNet LA.