The Los Angeles Dodgers come away against the Tampa Bay Rays with a Wednesday afternoon win at Dodger Stadium.
It was a white-knuckle type of outing for the Los Angeles Dodgers as they came away with a tight 5-4 win against the Tampa Bay Rays to earn a three-game sweep. Even with Shohei Ohtani on the bump, this Los Angeles win was earned on all fronts.
Heading into this one, Ohtani had only given up six earned runs through his first 67 innings pitched. Against the Rays on a sunny Wednesday afternoon, Tampa Bay drove in four runs alone off the two-way player.
It was looking as protocol per usual when Ohtani took the mound. He held the Rays scoreless through the first four innings and picked up four strikeouts in the process.
The Rays then proceeded to bombard Ohtani in the fifth inning, putting up four runs, with the help of some defensive mishaps by the Dodgers' infielders.
“Actually, I just felt good overall," Ohtani said on his start. It’s just really that inning [5th inning] that I wasn’t really too pleased. Aside from that, the stuff was good, and I felt pretty good overall."
The multiple-run innings are starting to become a trend for Ohtani's starts.
Wednesday's four-run fifth inning marks the second consecutive outing in which he's allowed multiple runs in an inning.
Jun 17, 2026; Los Angeles, California, USA; Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Shohei Ohtani (17) throws a pitch during the second inning against the Tampa Bay Rays at Dodger Stadium. -- © Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images Despite manager Dave Roberts saying that Ohtani was coming into this start feeling good, Ohtani might have been dealing with the recurring blister issue in his middle finger.
It was evident that the blister had some sort of effect on his pitching. When Ohtani was coming off the mound in the fifth and while warming up for the sixth inning, blood spatter was seen on Ohtani's pant leg.
He did not attribute the blood nor the blister to have any affect on his performance.
"It’s just a part of the game. There’s not alot of situations where you feel 100%, so I just took it as that. It’s big that we were able to win a game like this," Ohtani said.
Skipper Dave Roberts does not believe that Ohtani's blister will be an issue for him moving forward and expects him to make his next start either next Wednesday or Thursday.
"At the end of the day, his body feels good," Roberts said.
Luckily, the Dodgers' offense decided that they would score some runs, unlike last night's performance, when Ohtani's lone home run proved to be the only source of offense in the win on Tuesday.
Following the Rays' four-run inning, the Dodgers managed to score three earned runs to come away with the win, including Freddie Freeman's go-ahead two-run home run in the sixth.
For another day, the bullpen held on to the one-run lead. Edgardo Henríquez, Jack Dreyer and Alex Vesia — who struck out Cedric Mullins with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth with two outs to end the contest— put up zeros for the last 3.2 innings.
Los Angeles has an off day on Thursday before returning to action beginning Friday for a three-game weekend series against the Baltimore Orioles.
Roki Sasaki will toe the slab for the series opener.
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