Tyler Glasnow strikes out 10 over eight innings and Shohei Ohtani and Andy Pages hit home runs as the Dodgers defeat the Mets 10-0 for a much-needed win.
There are no must-win games in April, but there are games in which you need to stop the bleeding.
The Dodgers found themselves in such a situation on Sunday, the supposed super team with the $308-million payroll having lost six of eight and in danger of getting swept in a three-game home series by the New York Mets for the first time since 1989.
Lucky for them, they had a human tourniquet in the form of Tyler Glasnow, the 6-foot-8, 225-pound right-hander who blanked the Mets on seven hits, struck out 10 and walked none over eight innings in what the Dodgers hoped was a momentum-shifting 10-0 victory before a crowd of 49,287 in Chavez Ravine.
Shohei Ohtani hit his 176th career homer, a 423-foot, two-run shot to right field in the third, to pass Hideki Matsui and become the all-time home run leader for Japanese-born big leaguers, and the Dodgers broke the game open with an eight-run, six-hit fifth-inning rally capped by Andy Pages’ three-run homer, the first of his career.
Glasnow rebounded from his worst start of the season, a five-inning, six-run, eight-hit effort in last Monday night’s 6-4 loss to Washington, with a dominant start in which he allowed only one runner to reach third base. Of his 101 pitches, 70 were strikes.
Glasnow became the first Dodgers starter to pitch into the eighth inning this season, and though he wobbled in the eighth, allowing two hits and a walk, he blew a 96-mph fastball by Tyrone Taylor for strike three with his final pitch of the game, punctuating the whiff with a violent fist pump as he walked off the mound.
“I think what an ace does is … set the tone for the day,” manager Dave Roberts said before the game.
