OAKLAND, Calif. — Jack Flaherty pitched six sharp innings in his Dodgers debut, and Los Angeles snapped a three-game losing streak by defeating the Oakland Athletics 10-0 on Saturday night.
Shohei Ohtani stole three bases for Los Angeles to give him 31 on the season to go with his 33 homers. This is just the fourth time a Dodgers player has reached the 30-30 club in a season, with only three players in the majors doing so faster than Ohtani, who accomplished the feat in the 111th game of the season. Eric Davis was the fastest to do it, in 1987, when he reached it in the Cincinnati Reds‘ 105th game.
Flaherty (8-5) had his big performance in his first game since being acquired on Tuesday from the Detroit Tigers in a trade-deadline deal. He paid immediate dividends for a struggling Dodgers team that had lost five of six games before he took the mound in Oakland.
“Anytime you get a chance to help a team win, that’s all that matters. That’s the important part about it,” Flaherty said. “I’ll take the time tonight and kind of let it soak it all in.”
He allowed five hits and one walk and struck out seven in an impressive performance. He ended his outing by escaping a bases-loaded, no-out jam in the sixth by inducing two groundouts and a strikeout.
“It was slowly getting into a rhythm. I think as the game went on, we got into a rhythm,” Flaherty said. “We got better in sync, and that’s kind of the nature of the game. And [catcher] Will [Smith] did a really good job of making adjustments.”
The Dodgers’ starters had combined for a 5.88 ERA over the previous 28 games — second worst in the majors during that span, contributing to the move to acquire Flaherty.
“I thought there was a quiet intensity to him,” Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts said of Flaherty. “He was very focused, very controlled. I just love the way he used his entire pitch mix.
Gavin Lux gave Flaherty the lead in the third inning with a two-run single off Mitch Spence (7-7), leading the Dodgers to their second win in seven games on this road trip.
Los Angeles now holds a 4½-game lead in the National League West over the San Diego Padres.
The A’s had won 10 of 14 games with 31 homers before being shut down by Flaherty and the Los Angeles bullpen in front of an announced crowd of 35,207 that was the biggest this season at the Coliseum.
Ohtani stole two bases in the ninth, and the Dodgers broke the game open with six runs to make it 10-0, setting the stage for position player Enrique Hernandez to finish the game with a scoreless inning of relief for Los Angeles.
“It’s been a tough road trip, a lot of games we could have won and didn’t,” Hernandez said in his postgame interview on SportsNetLA. “We came here on a mission to win a ballgame today, and we did that.”
Matt Kemp reached the 30-30 mark for the Dodgers in 2011, and Raul Mondesi did the same in both 1997 and 1999, according to ESPN Stats & Information.
“Shohei, as far as the foot speed and offensively, he’s one of one,” Roberts said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Source: www.espn.com