Shohei Ohtani took over pitch-calling after a second-inning mix-up with Dalton Rushing, and the Los Angeles Dodgers still held on for a 4-3 win over the Minnesota Twins on Wednesday. The change came after an early battery breakdown in which the two were out of sync through the first two innings and a crossup cost the Dodgers a run.
That mattered because the game turned on a thin margin and Ohtani settled in once he began calling his own pitches. After the second-inning problems, he did not allow another run through the sixth, turning a rocky start into a finish the Dodgers could protect.
The timing made the error stand out. Rushing was back in the lineup Wednesday after being removed from Monday’s game to rule out a concussion, and the first signs of trouble came quickly. Mookie Betts had already given the Dodgers a lift with a solo homer off Joe Ryan in the top of the second, his 300th career home run and one of his three hits in a night when he finished a triple shy of the cycle.
Then the inning on the mound got messy. Ohtani gave up singles to three of the first four batters he faced in the bottom of the second, and Ryan Kreidler came to the plate with the bases loaded before Mark Prior walked to the mound to huddle with Ohtani and Rushing. The miscue also included an ABS challenge issue, with a sweepers pitch that clipped the bottom of the strike zone and was called a ball two pitches later, adding another layer to a sequence that had already drifted off track.
Afterward, the two did not try to paper over it. Ohtani said there are really two ways to communicate, one with words and the other by example, and that he took charge by showing Rushing the pitching style he wanted to use. Rushing was blunter, saying he did not do a great job from start to finish, calling it pretty embarrassing, and later saying the mistake was on his side and that he had messed it up. He and Ohtani talked it through, but the split in how they described the problem underscored how a simple pitch-call can become a run in a one-run game.
The Dodgers also came into the day having already followed through on a pledge made a year ago, donating $1.1 million to two foundations supporting those impacted by immigration raids in the Southland. But on the field, Wednesday was decided by something smaller and more immediate: once Ohtani took the wheel, the Dodgers stopped losing the strike zone and finished the night with the only thing that mattered in the standings, a one-run win.
