Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers (84-66) dropped a tight game last night, as both teams exchanged big hits late and the Phillies came up with an extra-innings sac fly where the Dodgers failed to. Emmet Sheehan turned in 5 2/3 strong innings, but Jack Dreyer and Alex Vesia allowed homers and Blake Treinen allowed the ghost runner to score in the 10th for a 6-5 loss. Their already-slim chances at the 2-seed in the NL got even slimmer and the idle Padres are now 2 games back of first in the West as they begin a series with the Mets tonight. It was a bad loss for standings purposes, but doesn’t scratch the surface of “bad losses” this season. They competed against a really good team and Mookie Betts and Andy Pages came up with huge hits (shoutout Pages for a game-tying no-doubter off Jhoan Duran). Tonight, they look to even the series against another Phillies ace.
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| 7:10 P.M. | Los Angeles | ||
| CF | Bader | DH | Ohtani (L) |
| DH | Schwarber (L) | SS | Betts |
| 1B | Harper (L) | RF | Hernández |
| LF | Marsh (L) | 1B | Freeman (L) |
| 3B | Kemp | 2B | Edman (S) |
| RF | Kepler (L) | LF | Call |
| 2B | Wilson | CF | Pages |
| SS | Stott (L) | 3B | K. Hernández |
| C | Marchan | C | Rortvedt (L) |
| P | Sánchez (L) | P | Ohtani (R) |
Shohei Ohtani gets the ball coming off a bit of an emergency start in Baltimore. Ohtani was originally scheduled to start two days prior in Pittsburgh, was scratched with a bit of an illness and ended up starting two days later when Tyler Glasnow was scratched with back tightness. They limited Ohtani a bit with the unexpected start, pulling him at 70 pitches after 3 2/3 shutout innings. He allowed three hits and a walk with five strikeouts and 10 whiffs and the bullpen was mostly good, holding the Orioles to two runs (which was still enough for a win as the offense couldn’t get anything going against Baltimore pitching. See, much worse loss than last night). The weird scheduling led the Dodgers to pushing Ohtani’s next start back to today on 10 days’ rest. Ohtani’s never faced the Phillies as a pitcher and has a .661 OPS in 16 games against them as a hitter.
Cristopher Sanchez makes his 30th start of the season. He came in 10th in Cy Young voting last season and is basically better in every way this season. Sanchez has a 2.57 ERA in 182 1/3 innings (already surpassing his innings in 31 starts last season) and has allowed more than three runs in only three of his 29 starts this season. One of those came against the Dodgers in his second start of the season, when he allowed four runs and six hits (two homers). Sanchez has only had two scoreless outings this season, but has also only had six starts allowing more than two runs. He’s completed six innings in 22 of his 29 starts yet has only four starts above 100 pitches. Sanchez has allowed one run in each of his last three starts, but did allow 11 runs over his previous three starts.
Sanchez throws a sinker nearly half the time (45.3 percent). His 58.3 percent ground ball rate is the third-highest among qualified starters and he’s only allowed 10 homers, tied with Paul Skenes and David Peterson (who’s thrown 20 fewer innings than Sanchez) for the fewest allowed. Sanchez hasn’t allowed a homer in his last eight starts dating back to July 28, where naturally he allowed two to the White Sox (one of his three starts allowing more than three runs). Sanchez throws a changeup almost exclusively to righties (38.1 percent usage, 926 of his 1006 changeups have been to righties) and it has a 44.4 percent whiff rate and .196 wOBA allowed. His third pitch is a slider (16.6 percent usage), and despite it being his least-used pitch it’s his most dingered pitch (five of his 10 homers have come off the slider).
Tommy Edman returns to the lineup, starting at second with Miguel Rojas sitting. Max Muncy also sits, as Enrique Hernandez gets the start at third. Ben Rortvedt starts behind the plate.
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Rortvedt does get the start tonight, but Dalton Rushing is back.
Chuckie Robinson was optioned after getting his first Dodger start last night. Rushing returns after the minimum 10-days on the IL.
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Brock Stewart had his first rehab assignment today.
Brock Stewart opened his rehab assignment with OKC with a scoreless inning.
— Alex Freedman (@azfreedman) September 16, 2025
Allowed 1 hit and 1 walk. 19 pitches/8 strikes.#Dodgers
He needed 19 pitches to throw a scoreless inning and threw more balls than strikes. They said yesterday he’d make another rehab outing on Thursday and then potentially return to the bigs.
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First pitch is scheduled for 7:10 PM PT and will be shown on SportsNet LA and TBS (out-of-market).
