Two days after announcing the birth of his second child, Shohei Ohtani is expected to be in the leadoff spot once again for a Father’s Day matchup against the visiting Baltimore Orioles to close out a three-game series.
It has been an eventful week-plus for the Dodgers’ two-way star.
Ohtani missed a game on the Dodgers’ most recent road trip because of knee inflammation, completed a recent pitching performance with a bloody blister on a finger and was out again Friday as his wife Mamiko gave birth.
While paternity leave grants a player three days away, Ohtani missed just one game for the occasion and was back in the lineup Saturday when he went 1-for-4 with a ninth-inning home run.
The Orioles managed to hold on for a 3-2 victory as the Dodgers saw their four-game winning streak come to an end. All four victories were by one run and they had the game-winning run on base in the ninth Saturday before their late rally fizzled.
Dodgers right-hander Emmet Sheehan will be on the mound Sunday in the final game before the team departs on a nine-game three-city road trip that starts Monday at Minnesota.
Sheehan (3-4, 4.76 ERA) is on a three-start losing streak after giving up three runs on four hits over five innings in a road defeat to the Chicago White Sox last Sunday. He has faced the Orioles just once, in 2023, when he gave up four runs in five innings but still earned the win.
The Orioles will counter with right-hander Brandon Young (5-2, 3.18), who is 3-1 with a 2.83 ERA over his last eight starts as Baltimore went 7-1 in those contests. That one loss came Tuesday, when Young gave up three runs on four hits over six innings on the road against the Seattle Mariners.
Young will be facing the Dodgers for the first time.
Just 2-for-15 with one RBI and eight strikeouts over the first four games of the Orioles’ nine-game West Coast road trip, the Orioles’ Leody Teveras had two hits and two runs scored over his first two at-bats Saturday.
Blaze Alexander had a two-run single for the Orioles, who are now 2-3 on the trip. The team’s travels will end with a three-game series against the Los Angeles Angels starting Monday.
After the Dodgers won the series opener by scoring three runs in the ninth inning against Ryan Helsley, they pulled within a run by scoring twice in the ninth Saturday before Kyle Tucker struck out against Yennier Cano to end the game.
Rico Garcia, Grant Wolfram, Andrew Kittredge and Cano combined to record the final six outs to make a winner out of left-hander Trevor Rogers, who gave up one hit over seven scoreless innings. A misplay at third base and in right field by the Orioles in the ninth inning opened the door for the Dodgers’ rally.
“We have one of the best bullpens, in my opinion, in the league,” Rogers said. “That’s what’s tough about the team on the other side. You have to beat them all nine innings. You can’t give them the extra out or they’re gonna get you. It was a good moment for us to rebound.”
Baltimore second baseman Jackson Holliday left Saturday’s game in the eighth inning as a precaution with groin tightness.
–Field Level Media
