CHICAGO — The Dodgers were already missing their best player before the first pitch. Shohei Ohtani sat out Friday’s series opener at Guaranteed Rate Field with the same left knee he hurt Thursday in Pittsburgh, and Los Angeles looked exactly like the team you’d expect without him. Roki Sasaki couldn’t survive the fifth inning. The offense mustered four hits. The White Sox, a team that lost 121 games a year ago, won comfortably. Final score: Chicago 8, Los Angeles 2.
Sasaki Runs Into a Wall in the Fifth
Sasaki looked like himself through four innings. He worked around traffic, got outs when he needed them, and kept Chicago off the board in the third despite a Miguel Vargas single. But the fifth inning unraveled in a hurry. Tristan Peters opened it with a walk. Drew Romo singled to put runners at the corners. Sam Antonacci punched a ground ball single to right that scored Peters and tied the game at two. Then Vargas came up and went the other way on a sharp fly ball that fell for a double, scoring Romo and pushing Chicago ahead 3-2. That was enough for Dave Roberts. Blake Treinen came on to try to stop the damage, and he couldn’t either. A walk to Colson Montgomery, another walk to Braden Montgomery, and a Chase Meidroth single off Treinen made it 6-2. Peters came back up and smoked a triple to center off Treinen to clear the bases. Just like that, it was 8-2, and the game was effectively over.
Four Hits and Nowhere to Go
The Dodgers managed four hits on the day and spent most of the game looking completely stuck against Anthony Kay. The only run they scored in an actual rally came in the second inning, when Miguel Rojas doubled and Santiago Espinal singled him home. Kyle Tucker walked and Max Muncy got hit by a pitch to load the bases, but the inning ended on a fly out with two runs already in. After that, it was three up, three down or close to it, inning after inning. Mookie Betts went 0-for-3 before being replaced for defensive purposes in the sixth. Freddie Freeman struck out twice. Andy Pages fanned three times. The lineup produced nothing with runners on base after the second and had no real threat the rest of the way.
A Familiar Problem With a Familiar Name Absent
This is not a new story. When Ohtani plays, the Dodgers are a different team. The lineup breathes differently, pitchers have to adjust their approach to everyone around him, and opportunities open up in ways that do not exist when he is not there. Thursday in Pittsburgh he went deep, scored twice, and reached base four times before leaving. Friday he was in the dugout in street clothes, and the offense scored twice on four hits against a pitcher with a 6-1 record. That is not a coincidence. It is also not a panic situation, but the knee will be worth watching as the weekend goes on. No timetable has been set.
Up Next
The Dodgers and White Sox play Game 2 of the series Saturday at 1:10 p.m. PT. Yoshinobu Yamamoto gets the ball for Los Angeles against Chicago’s Sean Burke. If Ohtani is available, even as a DH, the lineup conversation changes significantly. If not, the Dodgers will need Yamamoto to be sharp and the offense to find something it couldn’t locate Friday.
