Wrobleski Navigates Trouble as Dodgers Blank Cubs to Take Series

Justin Wrobleski looked, early on, like he might be headed for a short afternoon. By the third inning he had already thrown more than 50 pitches, traffic was building on the bases, and despite a quick 3-0 Dodgers lead, the left-hander hardly appeared in cruise control. What followed instead was less a display of dominance than one of survival, and perhaps that made it more impressive.

Wrobleski worked six scoreless innings Sunday, repeatedly escaping trouble and pitching around his own occasional wildness as the Dodgers beat the Cubs 6-0 in the series finale at Dodger Stadium.

He struck out six, walked four, hit a batter and needed 104 pitches to get through six innings, but never allowed Chicago to break through, lowering his ERA to 1.50 and becoming the first Dodgers pitcher since Chad Billingsley in 2009 to win his first four starts.

It may not have been his sharpest outing, but it may have been his most impressive.

The Cubs put leadoff runners aboard in six of nine innings and finished 0-for-20 with runners on base, stranding 12. In the second inning Wrobleski pitched out of a bases-loaded jam, striking out Nico Hoerner before getting Alex Bregman to ground out. Similar moments surfaced throughout the afternoon, but each time Wrobleski found a way to keep the game from tilting.

“For a young pitcher to go through stress and be consistent and be able to manage that stress, limit damage — that shows a lot of growth,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “It’s a sign of a really competent pitcher.”

Roberts admitted the outing had taken a shape even he did not anticipate after the laborious start.

“I didn’t see him going six innings and a shutout,” Roberts said. “But he found a way to do it.”

That, more than anything, defined the day.

The Dodgers gave him immediate support in the first. Shohei Ohtani walked, stole second, advanced to third on a throwing error and scored on Andy Pages’ sacrifice fly, while Miguel Rojas added a two-run double for a 3-0 lead. Los Angeles added two more in the sixth, with Dalton Rushing driving in a run and Kyle Tucker scoring on a pickoff error by Cubs catcher Carson Kelly.

Ohtani supplied the exclamation point in the seventh, sending an opposite-field home run into the wind in left-center to extend the lead to 6-0. He finished 3-for-4 with a walk, scored twice and fell a triple shy of the cycle, but the afternoon belonged less to star power and more to the young left-hander piecing together six difficult innings.

Wrobleski and Cubs starter Shota Imanaga combined for 100 pitches through the first two innings, and for stretches it seemed command issues might define the game. Instead, Wrobleski turned a potentially messy outing into another milestone start, using equal parts composure and persistence to outlast a Cubs lineup that kept threatening but never converted.

For a Dodgers club still looking for consistency from its pitching staff, that may have been the most significant part of the afternoon. Two days after watching a late lead disappear in painful fashion, Los Angeles closed the series behind a starter who bent repeatedly but never broke.

There was little easy about Wrobleski’s afternoon, and little flashy. It was held together more by adjustments than overpowering stuff, more by nerve than rhythm.

Sometimes those are the outings pitchers remember most.

The Dodgers likely will too.