Shohei Deals, Dodgers Don’t, and a Promising Road Trip Keeps Shrinking

What was supposed to be a chance for the Dodgers to create some breathing room in the National League West has instead become something closer to damage control.

A seven-game trip through Colorado and San Francisco looked manageable on paper, particularly against division opponents who entered the stretch looking more vulnerable than threatening. Instead, after Wednesday’s 3-0 loss to the Giants, the Dodgers have dropped four of their last six, settled for a split in Colorado that now feels generous, and have already lost the series in San Francisco regardless of what happens in Thursday’s finale. They remain in first place, though only technically, sharing the top of the division now with San Diego's Padres who have spent the season lurking nearby like someone waiting for your parking meter to expire.

None of it would feel quite as frustrating if Wednesday hadn’t unfolded the way it did, because for six innings Shohei Ohtani gave the Dodgers exactly the kind of start that should have ended with high-fives in the dugout and a win in the standings.

Ohtani was, as Dave Roberts put it afterward, “outstanding,” and there wasn’t much reason to disagree. He worked six scoreless innings, allowed five hits, struck out seven, walked nobody and threw 91 pitches, lowering his ERA to an almost absurd 0.38. There was traffic early and a little pressure in the sixth, but he navigated both with the kind of calm that has made these mound appearances increasingly look less like experiments and more like luxuries.

Roberts spoke admiringly about Ohtani’s presence from the opening inning, his stuff, his focus, the way he seemed in command of the game. What the manager couldn’t speak positively about, and admitted as much, was the support behind him.

The Dodgers provided almost none.

Facing Tyler Mahle, Los Angeles again struggled to turn opportunities into anything tangible. There were moments where the game invited a breakthrough — first-and-third in the fourth, two men on in the first — but every time a crack appeared, the Dodgers seemed to seal it shut themselves. Mahle, despite entering with a losing record, carried a shutout through seven innings while allowing only three hits.

The offensive issues, which Roberts acknowledged afterward he doesn’t exactly have an answer for, have become harder to dismiss as a short slump. Over the last two nights the Dodgers have scored one run total. When the home run isn’t there, they have looked strangely unable to manufacture offense in other ways, whether by situational hitting, extending innings, or simply cashing in routine scoring opportunities. Roberts noted as much when he pointed out that if the homers aren’t coming, a team has to be sharper in smaller moments. The Dodgers haven’t been.

Even so, the game remained scoreless until the seventh, which made what happened next feel all the more punishing.

Jack Dreyer entered in relief of Ohtani and quickly allowed two singles. A sacrifice bunt moved both runners over, and with Patrick Bailey — the Giants’ number nine hitter — behind in the count, the Dodgers seemed one pitch away from escaping the inning intact. Instead Dreyer left a 90 mph slider where it had no business being, Bailey drove it into the seats, and a scoreless duel became a 3-0 deficit in a blink.

Given the way the Dodgers were swinging the bats, it felt final the moment it left.

By the late innings, even the seagulls had started circling, perhaps sensing both leftover pretzels and the Dodgers’ fading chances.

There were smaller frustrations layered throughout the night. Ohtani, who had been carrying a 53-game on-base streak into the game, went 0-for-4 and saw that run end, an odd note in a season where his consistency has started to feel automatic. The Dodgers, meanwhile, managed so little hard contact that by night’s end they had put only four balls in play with any authority, which feels almost harder to do intentionally.

And so a game that should have been remembered for Ohtani’s brilliance instead became another example of how little margin the Dodgers are giving themselves lately.

That may be the larger concern emerging from this road trip. It isn’t merely that they’ve lost four of six, or that a chance to build division separation has instead tightened the race. It’s that too often strong pitching performances are requiring perfection because the offense is providing so little cushion.

On nights like this, one mistake can be decisive.

Wednesday proved it.

A hanging slider to the ninth-place hitter was enough to waste six scoreless innings from Ohtani, enough to drop another game in a suddenly uneven road trip, and enough to send the Dodgers into Thursday facing Logan Webb trying not just to salvage a game, but perhaps a little momentum too.

That’s not quite where this trip was supposed to leave them. But right now, that’s exactly where they are.