The Dodgers’ trade deadline deal is immediately paying off, with Jack Flaherty performing well during a win over the Oakland Athletics on Saturday.
There was no primal scream, no exaggerated fist pump, and very little outward emotion from the Dodgers’ newest pitcher.
Instead, in the defining moment of an auspicious team debut for Jack Flaherty on Saturday night at the Oakland Coliseum, the veteran pitcher simply tapped his glove, chewed on some gum and returned to his new team’s dugout with a confident nod of his head.
In the Dodgers’ 10-0 win over the Oakland Athletics, Flaherty delivered everything the team had been hoping for when it acquired him in a blockbuster deadline-day trade with the Detroit Tigers on Tuesday.
He pitched six shutout innings, leading the way in what was only the Dodgers’ third win in their last nine games.
He racked up seven strikeouts and 16 swings and misses, flashing the kind of premium stuff they hope will bolster a starting rotation battling injuries and searching for frontline pitching.
Most of all, with the game on the line in a bases-loaded, no-outs jam in the bottom of the sixth, the Dodgers put their trust in Flaherty.
Then they watched him embrace the pressure.
During a nine-pitch sequence, the right-hander induced a fielder’s choice grounder, a swing-and-miss strikeout and an inning-ending two-hopper back up the middle — giving the Dodgers both a tantalizing sample of his resurgent 2024 season, in which he is now 8-5 with a 2.
