Dodgers 1, Angels 0: Freddie Freeman walks it off with a homer to back Roki Sasaki’s dominant outing

Chad Moriyama 06/05/2026 Game Recaps Leave A Comment

The Dodgers began their quick pitstop at home for a Freeway Series against the Angels with a win in walk-off fashion. The two teams were locked into a scoreless pitchers’ duel through the first eight and a half innings before old friend Kirby Yates served up a lead-off homer in the bottom of the ninth to Freddie Freeman for a 1-0 victory.

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For the Dodgers, Roki Sasaki continued his run of positive starts as it becomes more and more apparent that it’s just who he is now.

In the 1st, he started with a clean frame that included a pair of strikeouts on some nasty splitters, and he continued by retiring the side in the 2nd.

The 3rd saw Roki get helped out by some stellar defense, as Miguel Rojas made one of the plays of the year on a ball that deflected off Roki’s glove and he barehanded going away from the bag.

After a strikeout for a second out, he issued a walk later in the inning, then Mookie Betts made a nice play of his own on a glove flip to end the inning.

Roki also worked around a one-out walk in the 4th with a pair of strikeouts as he continued to roll without giving up a hit. That ended in the 5th with a one-out double, but Roki ended that frame without relenting. He saw more traffic in the 6th after a lead-off single, and there was a stolen base sandwiched between a pair of strikeouts, but another nice defensive play from Santiago Espinal got Roki through six shutout.

Roki then completed his outing in the 7th with two more strikeouts, looking as nasty as he had all night.

It is the reserve lineup of the Angels, but this is just the kind of stuff you can expect from him now where he can overmatch bad lineups: 7 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 10 K, 98 Pitches.

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Unfortunately, on the other end was Reid Detmers for the Angels, who the Dodgers also weren’t doing much against. Through three innings, all they got was a two-out walk in the 1st. The 4th saw the Dodgers get something going, as a one-out single and walk gave them a couple of cracks at getting something across, but it didn’t result in anything. Detmers got a clean 5th and then faced the minimum in the 6th when single was erased by a caught stealing.

That was thankfully it for him, but their pen started by only allowing a two-out walk in the 7th and hitting a batter with one down in the 8th.

Taking over for Roki in the 8th was Edgardo Henriquez, who was cruising with a pair of strikeouts before hitting a batter on a 1-2 count. No matter, as he bounced back with another strikeout to keep things scoreless.

Tanner Scott started the 9th with a strikeout, then allowed a 79 MPH, .040 xBA bloop single to right that somehow fell in, then got the second out on a sac bunt. Due to the matchup, Dave Roberts went to Blake Treinen, who used all of one pitch to get a groundout to end the frame.

Fortunately, the Angels started the 9th with old friend Kirby Yates, who paid the Dodgers back for the suffering of last year and the ring by serving up Freddie Freeman’s 10th homer of the season for a 1-0 walk-off win

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41-23

The series continues tomorrow at the same time of 4:10 PM HT/7:10 PM PT/10:10 PM ET with Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the bump against Jack Kochanowicz.

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