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There was only one way Shohei Ohtani wasn’t going to hit in the bottom of the ninth inning Tuesday night.
Stunningly, the Dodgers stumbled straight into the remote, far-fetched, absolute worst-case calamity.
With runners on first and second and the front-runner for National League most valuable player standing on deck with no outs in a two-run game, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts called for Miguel Rojas to attempt a bunt on the first pitch he saw. However, when Rojas laid off a called strike, and the San Diego Padres’ infield shifted its defensive positioning, Roberts changed his mind — and watched in horror at what happened next.
Rojas swung away and hit a ground ball to third baseman Manny Machado, who scurried to step on third before firing a throw to second. Then teammate Jake Cronenworth completed the relay with a quick strike to first base.
Dodgers shortstop Miguel Rojas fights back tears in the dugout after hitting into a game-ending triple play against the Padres at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
In a frenzied flash, the game was over. Padres 4, Dodgers 2. In only the 28th major league game to end on a triple play.
“There’s less than a 1% chance that Shohei doesn’t come up to bat,” Roberts said. “And unfortunately that small percentage came into play.”
The Dodgers (93-64) lost the opener of the three-game series that could settle the National League West and had their lead cut to two games. They still have a chance to rebound against the Padres (91-66), but if they don’t and ultimately squander a division lead they’ve held since opening day, Tuesday’s loss will loom large in their reflections.
The Padres needed an act of divine intervention to win Tuesday and Manny Machado thinks they got one from Peter Seidler, who died last November.
A team accustomed to October collapses might have just gotten a head start.
“It’s shocking,” Roberts said. “To not get Shohei up is obviously very disappointing.”
Tuesday’s loss, however, was a fitting result for a Dodgers team that came out flat in its biggest series of the season.
On the mound, San Diego starter Michael King outdueled Dodgers rookie Landon Knack. While King gave up just an unearned run in five innings, Knack ran out of gas in a four-inning, four-run outing, a concerning result for an unproven pitcher who likely will be tasked with starting in the postseason.
At the plate, the Padres also were more clinical, scoring all four runs with two out while the Dodgers stranded seven men on base and went two for 10 with runners in scoring position.
Mostly, though, the Padres played cleaner and — in a continuation of a trend Roberts highlighted coming into this series — seemingly with more intensity, out-executing a Dodgers team that knew it could clinch the division with a series win this week, but also effectively slip to second place if it were swept.
“They got the big hits when they needed,” Roberts said. “And when we needed to make a pitch, we just couldn’t.”
Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani strikes out to end the seventh inning as Padres catcher Kyle Higashioka heads to the dugout at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
And yet, despite a 4-1 deficit entering the bottom of the ninth, opportunity for salvation arose at the end.
Will Smith and Tommy Edman led off with singles. Kiké Hernández then dropped a broken-bat floater into center for a run-scoring hit.
With no outs and the deficit trimmed to two, Ohtani stepped in the on-deck circle to the excitement of the crowd of 50,369. Anticipation built for him to take a potential game-winning at-bat.
But first, Rojas came to the plate. And in the dugout, Roberts and his staff rolled the dice on a couple of high-stakes decisions.
On the first pitch from Padres closer Robert Suarez, Rojas was instructed to lay down a bunt. The veteran infielder squared around on a 97-mph fastball, but pulled back just as it clipped the bottom of the zone for Strike 1.
“I feel like I had an opportunity to get the bunt down early on that at-bat,” Rojas said. “But I couldn’t get the job done there.”
When Rojas looked back up the line at third base coach Dino Ebel, he was relayed a new sign from the dugout: Swing.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
As Roberts later explained, he saw the Padres infield shift to a “wheel play” after the first pitch — with the corner infielders moving onto the grass, Cronenworth shuffling toward the bag at second and shortstop Xander Bogaerts staying deep in the hole between second and third.
That alignment suggested the Padres were expecting a bunt. Roberts feared doing so would lead to one easy out, and potentially two if the Padres could turn the play quickly.
“You can’t bunt because you’re bunting into an out,” Roberts said. “With the infield in, Bogaerts out of position, the best chance is to put the ball in play and hopefully find a hole.”
Did the thought of a triple play even cross Roberts’ mind?
“No,” he said. “Not at all.”
How about when Rojas’ grounder one-hopped to Machado?
“No,” he reiterated. “I thought [Machado] was going to go from third to first.”
The chances of Clayton Kershaw bolstering the Dodgers’ injury-ravaged rotation appear to be dwindling by the day.
Instead, Machado fired to second, where Cronenworth received it just ahead of Hernández’s slide. Rojas futilely sprinted toward first but never had much chance at getting there in time.
“I let the team down on that one,” Rojas said in a somber postgame clubhouse.
On the other side of the stadium, Machado and the Padres popped champagne bottles in celebration of clinching a postseason berth.
“I was thinking he was going to bunt,” Machado said. “[But when] he hit a ground ball right at me, instantly, you know, ‘Hey, let’s try to turn this and get us out.’ ”
Following the game, Roberts said he didn’t regret the decision to call off the bunt.
“He hit the ball hard,” Roberts said. “And I just can’t play the game of, if it gets through, then it’s a great play and then if it hits right at him, it’s a bad play.”
Rojas also agreed with the decision, echoing Roberts’ point about the Padres’ shift.
“The way they were playing on defense, I think it made sense for me to swing the bat there,” he said. “I’m totally confident that I can get to a fastball. Unfortunately, I hit it on the ground.”
That left the Dodgers needing to regroup to avoid total disaster over the final week of the season. If they can’t hold off the Padres — who, in case of an end-of-season tie, would own the head-to-head tiebreaker against the Dodgers after winning eight of the teams’ first 11 games — the Dodgers would have to begin their postseason a week earlier than expected, in a best-of-three wild-card round that could grind down their already-shorthanded pitching staff.
“It’s important,” Roberts said of his team’s need to rebound. “Really important.”
So too, however, was getting Ohtani to the plate in the ninth inning Tuesday. It was a near certainty that didn’t happen.
The Dodgers can only hope their pursuit of the division title doesn’t suffer the same fate.
