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On the day the Giants staged a ballpark celebration for Barry Bonds, Shohei Ohtani and his friends crashed the party.
Two of history’s greatest left-handed batters converged on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon at Oracle Park, and while Bonds was honored with a series of tributes on his bobblehead day, Dodger fans got to cheer the most.
Ohtani was both the starting pitcher and leadoff hitter — he did nothing in four at-bats, but he threw three scoreless innings, touching 100 miles per hour in the first and striking out the side in order: Mike Yastrzemski, Heliot Ramos, and Rafael Devers.
The Dodgers scored two runs off Landen Roupp (one unearned, thanks to Willy Adames’ error) and snapped their seven-game losing streak by beating the Giants 2-1 to even the series at a win apiece heading into Sunday’s series finale and the last game before the All-Star break.
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Early in the day, as Bonds sat in the dugout with family and friends waiting to throw the ceremonial first pitch, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts walked across the field to visit him. They embraced and watched an interview on the scoreboard that broadcaster Duane Kuiper recently conducted with Bonds, covering many of his career highlights.
“I was part of these moments,” said Roberts, Bonds’ teammate in 2007. “I just want to sit here and watch.”
Roberts has managed Ohtani the past two seasons and naturally is biased, but when comparing the homers king with the two-way sensation, he made a clear choice.
“I think that they’re in the top of their field as far as hitters,” Roberts said. “Barry just had a shorter swing. I think if you’re talking about slug, it’s very comparable. But Barry was just, to be quite frank, Barry’s the best hitter I’ve ever seen. To be able to hit .3-something every year, to get on base the way he got on base, to be able to swing the bat three times a week and hit three homers, it will never happen again.
“But in today’s game, you’re talking about (Aaron) Judge and Shohei as kind of the guys. But Barry, for me, is in a class by himself.”
Roupp nicely handled Ohtani in three consecutive at-bats by inducing two groundouts on curveballs and striking him out on a sinker high in the zone that Ohtani simply watched sail past him. In Ohtani’s final at-bat, he faced Joey Lucchesi and swung through a high fastball for another strikeout.
“It was crazy, honestly,” Roupp said. “Going into the day, I was kind of shocked he was still leading off just because he threw his pregame bullpen. But he does it so well, he’s just fun to watch.”
Roupp lasted six innings, struck out eight, and walked one, a far cry from his clunker at Dodger Stadium on June 14 when he failed to finish two innings in an 11-5 loss. Rather than studying video from that game, as he does after every other start, Roupp chose to forget about it — “That one, I put in the past.”
Heading into the break, the right-hander has a 3.27 ERA and is the clear No. 3 starter behind Logan Webb and Robbie Ray and hopes to be part of any postseason rotation.
“This team’s good enough to be in the playoffs,” Roupp said, “and I want to be pitching in the playoffs.”
Unfortunately for the Giants, their offense didn’t put on a show with Bonds in the house and collected just three hits. Ohtani began by striking out Yastrzemski and Ramos on fastballs and Devers on a slider, requiring just 12 first-inning pitches, 10 of which were strikes. Likewise, he needed just 12 pitches in the second and third innings before exiting. He gave up one hit, a Yastrzemski single.
It was his fifth start since he returned from his latest elbow surgery and first time he reached three innings. His goal is to continue amping it up so he can be a two-way force in the postseason for the first time in his career.
Ramos said he admires Ohtani’s overall game and, as an opponent, would rather see him pitch because, “Pitching, on a bad day, he could give it up. Hitting, he looks so consistent at the plate even when he makes outs. It looks like he’s on the plate all day every day, so I’d rather have him pitching. But if I was him, I would hit.”
With Ohtani gone, the Giants faced Emmet Sheehan, who made two previous appearances this season, both starts, and was designated as Saturday’s bulk reliever. The Giants immediately threatened by drawing two walks, but Jung Hoo Lee — who needed to duck out of the way of a bird and ask the umpire for time– swung at a first pitch and popped out. Casey Schmitt made the final out.
Shehan fooled hitters through three innings until running into trouble in the eighth when the Giants loaded the bases on singles by Patrick Bailey and Ramos sandwiched around a Yastrzemski walk. Bailey, four days after legging out an inside-the-park homer, was charging hard around third on Ramos’ hit but was held by third base coach Matt Williams, a wise move in retrospect.
Devers followed with a long sacrifice fly for a 2-1 score, but Matt Chapman grounded out to strand Yastrzemski at third.
One game remains before the break with two All-Stars on the mound, the Giants’ Robbie Ray and Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto, neither of whom is eligible to pitch in Tuesday’s Atlanta-hosted showcase because of the rule disallowing pitchers who appear in Sunday’s games.
Still, Ray will accompany Logan Webb and Randy Rodriguez to Atlanta, and the Giants wish Tyler Rogers, who lowered his ERA to 1.55 on Saturday, could tag along, too. However, Major League Baseball chose Milwaukee’s Jacob Misiorowski as an All-Star replacement even though he has made just five starts. The decision seems a show of disrespect to established pitchers such as Rogers who have worked for years trying to earn recognition at the highest level.
“My opinion is, he should be on the team,” manager Bob Melvin said of Rogers. “It comes down to numbers. I’m a little surprised to see some of the other guys make the team that haven’t even been up for half a year.”