LOS ANGELES — The home runs keep coming for Shohei Ohtani at a deluge. The help on offense was down to a trickle before the flow started just in time Wednesday.
After Tommy Edman delivered an RBI single in the seventh inning, Freddie Freeman saved the day when his game-ending sinking line drive to left field with two outs in the ninth just eluded the glove of Harrison Bader to deliver two runs in a 4-3 walk-off win against the Minnesota Twins.
Ohtani tied a franchise record with a home run in his fifth consecutive game before the bullpen struggled yet again as the Minnesota Twins turned a two-run eighth inning into a 3-2 lead.
The brilliant sunshine only focused a brighter light on the Dodgers’ bullpen issues. Without left-hander Tanner Scott and right-hander Ben Casparius, who both departed games with injuries this week, Kirby Yates was the latest to walk three batters in an inning.
Trying to nurse a 2-1 lead, Yates put the first three Twins hitters aboard on free passes immediately after entering the game in the eighth. Alex Vesia got Willi Castro to ground into a double play on his first pitch, but that allowed the tying run to score.
Bader gave the Twins a 3-2 lead with an infield single just over the head of Vesia and onto the grass behind the mound in a turn of events that only highlighted the pain of recent struggles, until the Dodgers found a way to rally in the ninth.
One out away from a defeat, Mookie Betts barely beat out an infield single. The Twins took a chance and walked Ohtani intentionally to move the tying run to second base. The decision looked even worse when Esteury Ruiz walked on five pitches from Jax to load the bases.
Freeman flipped his game-winning single into left to kick off a celebration on the first-base side of the mound.
Anthony Banda (5-1) came through for a battered bullpen with a scoreless ninth inning to set up the chance at victory.
Even amid a lack of recent team success, Ohtani continued to insert his name among the greats in Dodgers history.
A streak of five consecutive games with a home run has been accomplished five other times in club history. Max Muncy was the most recent to do it in 2019, following Joc Pederson (2015), Matt Kemp (2010), Shawn Green (2001) and Roy Campanella (1950).
That the power show has come while Ohtani has returned to pitching has limited the skepticism on whether high level performance is viable from both sides of his game at the same time.
More will be known when the Dodgers step out of their mild summer in Los Angeles and head into traditional summertime steam baths in Boston, Cincinnati and Tampa for a nine-game trip that begins Friday.
Ohtani moved into the National League lead for home runs with 37, breaking a tie with the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Eugenio Suarez. Also in that tie across baseball was the New York Yankees’ Aaron Judge, the last to hit a home run in five consecutive games when he accomplished the feat last season.
Only the Seattle Mariners’ Cal Raleigh has more home runs this season with 39.
In his third start since returning from shoulder inflammation, right-hander Tyler Glasnow has been just what the Dodgers’ pitching staff has needed.
Glasnow returned before the All-Star break and did not allow an earned run over five innings in Milwaukee on July 9. He repeated the feat against the red-hot Brewers on the other side of the break when he gave up one run in six innings on Friday.
In seven innings against the Twins, Glasnow gave up one run on three hits with one walk and a season-high 12 strikeouts. It was his first double-digit strikeout game of 2025 after he had six of them last season.
More to come on this story.
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