The Dodgers shut out the Arizona Diamondbacks 7-0 at Chase Field on Wednesday, and they did it without Shohei Ohtani in the lineup. Dalton Rushing was behind the plate while Will Smith moved to designated hitter, a small lineup shift in a game that still ended with the same blunt result: Arizona never scored.
That result mattered because the Dodgers were trying to take their third straight against the Diamondbacks, and the missing name was the one fans had come to expect at the top of the card. Ohtani had been dominating the series from the leadoff spot, with multi-hit games in each of the first three contests, so his day off stood out even before the first pitch. He also pitched on Wednesday, a reminder of how much the Dodgers have leaned on him while still managing his workload.
The numbers around him help explain why this series has felt so one-sided. Ohtani has a slugging percentage above.700 in 21 games at Chase Field, and his production in six ballparks has been enough to make it hard to tell whether his earlier struggles at the plate this season were real or just a brief detour. Against Arizona, the pattern has been even clearer: when he is locked in, the Dodgers tend to look like a different team.
There was also a matchup edge hanging over the game. Mookie Betts was batting.357 with one home run against Ryne Nelson, while Nelson carried a 2.72 ERA in 39.2 innings against the Dodgers. Those numbers suggested a tight matchup in the preview, but the final score moved in the other direction and left Arizona with nothing to show for a night at home.
What the 7-0 shutout did not tell us was which pitcher or hitters drove it, because that part was not made clear in the available information. What it did say was more important for the moment: the Dodgers kept rolling even with Ohtani resting, and the Diamondbacks left Chase Field still looking for a way to slow a rival that had already taken control of the series.
