Dodgers @ A’s June 29, 2026: Teo returns as the Dodgers head to Sacramento to close out the road trip

The Dodgers (54-30) took the rubber match in San Diego yesterday, as a three-run fifth inning and a bounceback start for Emmet Sheehan gave the Dodgers a 4-2 win and a 10-game lead in the division. It was their fifth win in six games on this road trip and they close it out with three unpredictable games in a minor league ballpark in Sacramento against the A’s.

The A’s are 40-44 this season but are somehow only two games back of the first place Rangers in the AL West, who are 42-42. This will be their fourth consecutive series against a fellow California team and it hasn’t gone well for them so far. The A’s split a four-game series with the Angels before losing a series to the Giants, and over the weekend they dropped two of three in Anaheim. They’ve lost six of their last eight but on the season they’re above .500 away from Sutter Health Park. Their temporary home stadium has had similar park factor numbers to Coors Field, so hopefully it’s not as cursed injury-wise as well. It doesn’t appear to penalize wRC+ as much as Coors does since the A’s have the third-highest home wRC+ in baseball (120) and their 65 homers at home are the most in baseball. On the road, they have the fourth-worst wRC+ (86) and only 42 homers, good for the 10th-fewest in baseball. Naturally this also impacts their pitching, as they have a 6.18 ERA at home which is by far the worst in baseball (Colorado is the second-worst at 5.81). Away from home, their team ERA is actually the fifth-best in baseball at 3.73. Baseball Reference’s park factors (where average is 100, >100 is above average for batters and <100 is above average for pitchers) has the A’s home park factors as 121 for batters and 122 for pitchers. For context, the Rockies numbers this year are 107 and 110.

	6:40 P.M.		Sacramento
DH	Ohtani (L)	CF	Bolte
CF	Pages	C	Langeliers
1B	Freeman (L)	1B	Kurtz (L)
SS	Betts	DH	Heim (S)
LF	T. Hernández	LF	Thomas
RF	Tucker (L)	RF	Butler (L)
3B	Muncy (L)	3B	Muncy
2B	Rojas	SS	Williams
C	Rushing (L)	2B	Kuroda-Grauer
P	Lauer (L)	P	Jump (L)

Eric Lauer gets the start after an excellent outing in Minnesota last week. Lauer’s continued to be effective with the Dodgers with a 2.54 ERA in 28 1/3 innings despite only having 16 strikeouts in that time. The Dodgers opted for an opener in Lauer’s last outing which he apparently didn’t love when he was with Toronto, but he responded very well to it this time out. Will Klein started the game and allowed a run in the first inning before Lauer took over in the second. Lauer responded with six no-hit innings, allowing three walks and two strikeouts to give the Dodgers a 2-1 win. It wasn’t a start but would have been Lauer’s third quality start in six Dodger outings, which is more than anyone could have expected out of a guy that got DFA’d with a 6.69 ERA in May. Lauer did face the A’s earlier this season with Toronto, getting the start in the third game of the season in Toronto. He held the A’s to two runs and three hits in 5 1/3 innings and gave up a homer to the A’s version of Max Muncy. His nine strikeouts were also the most he’s had in a game since back-to-back double digit strikeout outings in April 2022.

Rookie Gage Jump gets his seventh career start today. Jump is the No. 37 prospect on MLB Pipeline and the No. 3 prospect in the A’s org and so far he’s been excellent in the Majors. Jump’s career got off to a bit of a rocky start, allowing four runs and nine hits in five innings in his debut against the Mariners in late May. He’s allowed only four runs in 30 1/3 innings over five starts since then, with three of those runs coming in one game against the Rockies. Jump started June by allowing a run and three hits in seven innings at Wrigley and followed that up with 6 1/3 shutout in Houston. He returned home for that start against the Rockies where he allowed three runs in five innings in Sacramento, but conquered Sutter Health with seven one-hit shutout innings against the Angels two starts ago. Last time out in San Francisco, Jump struck out nine over five shutout innings to give him a current streak of 12 shutout frames. Seven of the eight runs Jump’s allowed have come at home, but he still hasn’t given up a homer in his career.

Jump has mainly been a three-pitch pitcher, leading with a four-seamer 48 percent of the time. He’s thrown a slider 25.7 percent of the time and a curve 12 percent of the time, and mixes in a change (8.4 percent, only to righties), sweeper (5.1 percent) and has been tracked throwing four sinkers.

Teoscar Hernandez returns from the IL, starting in left hitting fifth. Miguel Rojas gets the start against a lefty at second and Tommy Edman sits after starting all three games in San Diego. The A’s won’t have Jacob Wilson for this series as they placed him on the IL earlier today with thumb inflammation. No. 9 prospect Joshua Kuroda-Grauer gets the call and makes his Major League debut tonight, starting at second. Some nice synergy between the teams tonight, as both have their respective Max Muncy’s hitting seventh and playing third. .

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Teo returns and Ryan Ward heads back to AAA.

#Dodgers reinstated outfielder Teoscar Hernández from the injured list and optioned outfielder Ryan Ward.

— Kirsten Watson (@kirsten_watson) June 29, 2026

Ward got off to a hot start in the Majors, with hits in seven of his first nine games and five extra base hits in that time. He cooled off considerably as he got more playing time, going 4-for-25 with two doubles and no homers in his last 11 games. He showed enough to warrant more roster consideration and actually passed the eye test on defense (although that might be skewed from year 3 of watching Teo in left). He’ll almost surely be up again at some point this season, either with the Dodgers or elsewhere as he probably has more trade value now than he did entering the year.

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First pitch is scheduled for 6:40 PM PT and will be on SportsNet LA.