Mookie Betts swears he didn’t mean to look at the scoreboard Sunday afternoon.
But when he did, it crystalized the urgent situation the Dodgers found themselves in.
Late in Sunday’s game against the lowly Colorado Rockies, the Dodgers were trailing and in danger of dropping two of three to the National League West’s worst team.
Meanwhile, the NL West’s second-place team, the San Diego Padres, were in the process of completing a series sweep over the historically bad Chicago White Sox, a result that caught Betts’ eye on the out-of-town scoreboard along the right-field wall.
“I didn’t mean to look at it,” Betts said. “But they won. And we needed to win a game there.”
So, win a game Betts and the Dodgers did.
After trailing by four runs entering the seventh, and one run entering the ninth, the Dodgers side-stepped disaster and inched closer to an NL West division title, with Shohei Ohtani and Betts hitting back-to-back home runs in the ninth inning for a walk-off 6-5 win at Dodger Stadium.
Had the Dodgers lost, their division lead would have been in peril, trimmed to two games with the Padres coming to town for a monumental three-game set at Chavez Ravine this week.
Now, however, the Dodgers have some breathing room. They are still three games up on the Padres in the standings. Their magic number to clinch the division is down to four. And unless they get swept this week, a division title — and, even more importantly, a likely first-round bye in the playoffs — appears to be within their grasp.
“That,” manager Dave Roberts said, “felt like two wins,”
For most of the afternoon, Sunday was shaping up to feel like two losses for the Dodgers.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto struggled through a four-run, three-inning start, failing to command the ball (three walks) or limit contact (four hits) in a start that fell well short of the six-inning target Roberts had set pregame.
“It’s all about my mechanics,” Yamamoto said through interpreter Yoshihiru Sonoda. “My mechanics were off and the speed of my motion were a little off. That’s something that I have to make some adjustments to.”
The Dodgers’ offense, meanwhile, squandered a flurry of early opportunities, leaving 11 of their 13 baserunners stranded (thanks in large part to double-plays in each of the first three innings) while going just one for nine with runners in scoring position.
“It wasn’t pretty early,” Roberts said. “We had some opportunities. The ground ball double-plays certainly killed some rallies.”
To make matters worse, the outfield scoreboard relayed what was happening in San Diego, where the Padres — who have already clinched a head-to-head tiebreaker against the Dodgers this year — erased a late deficit against the White Sox to secure their fourth straight victory.
“They’ve had their way with us up to this point,” Roberts said of the Padres, who have won seven of 10 games against the Dodgers this year. “To lose a series [to the Rockies], it would have been tough, just mentally feeling a little bit like you’re on your heels.”
But then, the Dodgers found life.
Kiké Hernández, who was a late addition to Sunday’s lineup after third baseman Max Muncy was scratched because of side soreness (he is expected to be back in the lineup Tuesday), started the comeback with a two-run homer in the seventh inning, trimming a 5-1 deficit in half.
Freddie Freeman, who entered the day batting just .214 over the last two weeks and recorded two of the game’s early double-plays, cashed Ohtani’s steal of second base (his second of the day and 55th of the season) later in the inning with an RBI single, making it 5-4.
“I think Freddie getting the base hit to score a run, that sort of energized us,” Roberts said. “You know, Freddie’s been trying to find his way. And we do go with him as far as his emotion. And when he’s more downtrodden, it seems like everyone sort of follows suit. But when he’s chipper and going, that energy resonates with everyone else.”
With the help of a six-inning effort from the bullpen, including three innings of one-run ball from rookie Ben Casparius, that set the stage for the bottom of the ninth.
Ohtani led off with a line-drive rocket to right field, completing a four-hit performance with his 53rd, and perhaps most important, home run of the season. In his last four games, the MVP frontrunner is now 14 for 18 with five home runs, six stolen bases and 13 RBIs, pushing his batting average on the year back over .300.
“I really haven’t seen a player as locked in like Shohei is, for as long as he’s been, in quite some time,” Roberts said of Ohtani, who declined to speak with reporters postgame. “Just huge hits, huge homers.”
Three pitches later, Betts completed the comeback, launching a two-strike, 100.6 mph sinker from Seth Halvorsen into the left-field pavilion for his second career walk-off home run, and first with the Dodgers.
“Shohei starts it off with a homer there to give us some energy,” Betts said. “And fortunately I was able to put a good swing on it.”
Depending on how the next (and final) week of the regular season goes, the Dodgers could wind up with the best record in baseball, walking off the field Sunday with a half-game lead over the Philadelphia Phillies (who played the late game Sunday).
However, they need to clinch the division — and, given their pitching woes, a bye through the best-of-three wild card round — first.
“Certainly, where we’re at, it’d be helpful,” Roberts said pregame of the importance of those tasks. “It’s in our own hands. So that would be certainly welcomed, and it’s something that we still got to earn. We still got some work to do.”
Thanks to Sunday’s late-game theatrics, that work got a little easier entering the season’s final week.
“Man, what an inning,” Roberts said, huffing a sigh of pride and relief. “It just gives us such a good feeling going into an off day, [ahead] of a huge series.”
Gonsolin’s next step
A day after pitching three scoreless innings in his third minor-league rehab outing this month, Tony Gonsolin remains a potential option for the Dodgers’ postseason pitching staff, manager Dave Roberts said, though the team will wait for Gonsolin to throw a bullpen session next week before deciding what’s next for the right-hander.
Gonsolin is trying to make a surprise return from the Tommy John surgery he underwent late last season; an operation that was initially expected to keep him out until the 2025 season.
In his three triple-A rehab starts this month, Gonsolin had a 2.35 ERA with 12 strikeouts in 7 ⅔ innings. During Saturday’s outing, he averaged just under 92 mph with his fastball (and topped out at 94.3 mph), while getting whiffs on all five swings against his slider, changeup and splitter.
In a best-case scenario, Gonsolin could be activated to pitch for the Dodgers in next weekend’s final regular-season series in Colorado — though, Roberts said that is not a requirement for him to be considered for a postseason roster spot.
“He has postseason experience,” Roberts said of Gonsolin, who could help the Dodgers as a starter or multi-inning reliever. “For us, to continue to move forward with his progression is most important. And then we’ll just see where he’s at, where we’re at.”
