Dodgers Digest Los Angeles Dodgers Baseball Blog
The Dodgers (89-57) finished off a sweep of the Reds in commanding fashion on Wednesday with a 14-1 win behind Yoshinobu Yamamoto‘s strong seven innings. They scored in six of the eight innings they came up to bat and put up six runs in the fourth for their seventh straight win and to shrink the Magic Number to six. They’re 11 up on the Padres and 11.5 up on the Diamondbacks in the West and are 3.5 up on Atlanta for the 2-seed in the NL (really 3 up since Atlanta has the tiebreaker). They’re also 1.5 behind Milwaukee for the top seed (really 2 back since Milwaukee has the tiebreaker) and today look to join them as the only teams in baseball with 90 wins. The excitement of the win and the sweep was overshadowed by even bigger excitement, as news broke late in the game that Josue De Paula was being called up. He and the rest of the Dodgers begin a seven-game road trip that starts today in Miami.
The Marlins (72-75) aren’t technically out of the playoffs yet, but they’re definitely on life support as they’re 6.5 back of the Padres for the third and final NL Wild Card spot and would have to leapfrog two other teams (Arizona and Pittsburgh) to get there. They’ve lost six of their last seven and are coming off getting swept by the Mets after an insane finale on Wednesday. They lost that game 15-14 but were down 15-9 going into the eighth and ended up stranding the tying run at second. The Marlins came to LA back in April and won two of three, with all the games decided by one run. The Dodgers won the opener 5-4, but only scored three runs over the next two games.
 |  | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 4:10 P.M. | Miami | ||
| CF | Edman (S) | LF | H. Hernández |
| 3B | Muncy (L) | SS | Lopez |
| SS | Betts | CF | Marsee (L) |
| RF | Tucker (L) | 3B | Sanoja |
| C | Smith | C | Ramírez |
| LF | T. Hernández | 1B | Stowers (L) |
| DH | De Paula (L) | RF | Ruiz |
| 2B | Freeland (S) | 2B | Serna |
| 1B | K. Hernández | DH | Conine (L) |
| P | Snell (L) | P | Gusto (R) |
Blake Snell makes his seventh start of the season and has been dominant in his five starts off the IL. He’s gone six innings in four of those five and has allowed a total of three runs in those 29 innings. He’s coming off six shutout innings against the Nationals last Friday where he worked out of trouble a bit more than usual. He gave up five hits which is the most he’s allowed in a game since returning and walked two batters, but was able to work out of trouble to keep the Nats off the board. It was his first time over 100 pitches this season, but he’s working with an extra day of rest today. This is Snell’s first time pitching in Miami since 2023 and the fourth time in his career he’s done so. He’s allowed three runs in his previous three starts in Miami with two coming on solo homers by Corey Dickerson (remember Corey Dickerson?) and Lewis Brinson (remember Lewis Brinson?) back in 2020.
Ryan Gusto gets the ball for the 21st time this season for Miami. 15 of his 20 outings has been as a starter and he has a 4.29 ERA in 63 innings as a starter. He’s been in the rotation since June 24 and has a 3.89 ERA in nine starts since, but much of that has come from two rough starts. He’s allowed 18 runs in those nine starts with 11 coming in two starts. One of those blow up starts happened to be his most recent start against the Cubs, where he allowed five runs on 10 hits in 4 2/3 innings. He’s only completed five innings in three of his 15 starts and has only topped 90 pitches once, throwing 100 in that Cub start on Saturday. Gusto faced the Dodgers in LA as an Astro and was quite good, holding the Dodgers to a run on four hits in six innings despite only striking out one batter. They traded him to Miami a month later in the deal for Jesus Sanchez, who was DFA’d by the Blue Jays earlier today.
Gusto throws a seven-pitch mix, leading with a four seamer 28.1 percent of the time. That’s a pretty significant drop from last season, when he used it 43.7 percent of the time. He’s thrown the change 14.3 percent of the time after it was his least-used pitch last season (9.5 percent) and also throws a sinker (12.8 percent), cutter (12.8 percent), sweeper (12.7 percent), slider (11 percent) and curve (8.2 percent). He mainly throws fastball/sinker/sweeper against righties and fastball/change/cutter against lefties.
Freddie Freeman remains out of the lineup after DHing Tuesday and sitting Wednesday. Dave Roberts said it was more of a combination of turf/long flight and that he’ll be in there tomorrow. Enrique Hernandez starts at first again, making this a three-Hernandi day alongside Teoscar Hernandez and Marlins’ left fielder and leadoff hitter Heriberto Hernandez.
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De Paula! JDP serves as the DH tonight and hits seventh in his debut. They needed a couple roster moves to bring him up so Shohei Ohtani finally goes to the IL and Eric Lauer is moved to the 60-day IL.
#Dodgers officially make the move — Shohei Ohtani to IL, Josue DePaula promoted from Double-A. Eric Lauer goes to 60-day IL to clear 40-man roster spot for DePaula.
— Bill Plunkett (@billplunkettocr) September 11, 2026
Ohtani move is backdated so earliest he can return is Sept. 23
Assuming Ohtani’s rest goes smoothly, he can return September 23 against the Padres. That would leave him with five regular season games before the playoffs, so yeah, please get that 2 seed at least. Lauer’s season is done, as there’s no November games this year and he last pitched September 1.
Read more about JDP, Bruce broke down what to expect and Chad broke down a few other articles.
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A couple updates on Edwin Diaz and Roki Sasaki.
Edwin Díaz will need at least one more rehab start before Dodgers activate him off the IL, Roberts said. Roki Sasaki however could rejoin the rotation as early as Sunday. https://t.co/Scou2dOmJV
— Katie Woo (@katiejwoo) September 11, 2026
Diaz ticked off the back-to-back box, pitching Tuesday and Wednesday for OKC. He’ll need at least one more rehab outing before he’s back, maybe to get him right performance-wise just as much as getting him healthy. He’s only allowed one hit and one run in three rehab outings during this stint, but has walked four batters and only struck out three. Sasaki could be back on Sunday without a rehab assignment.
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First pitch is scheduled for 4:10 PM PT and will be on SportsNet LA.
