In the top of the ninth inning at Angel Stadium<\/a> on Tuesday night, Shohei Ohtani<\/a> lifted the team to the verge of a narrative-changing victory, breaking a tie with the kind of swing that could have catapulted them into the season\u2019s closing stretch.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n With former Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen<\/a> on the mound, and a split crowd in Anaheim rising to its feet, Ohtani blasted a go-ahead home run deep to right field. He flipped his bat and emphatically smacked his hands together. He screamed toward a euphoric Dodgers dugout that was going raucously wild.<\/p>\n So often in recent weeks, the team had been on the other end of scenes like this. Blowing late leads. Squandering comeback chances. And watching their division lead dwindle amid one of the worst extended stretches in the club\u2019s recent history.<\/p>\n Read more: Shaikin: Will Smith could win a batting title. Could the Dodgers stop him?<\/a><\/p>\n Now, at long last, they had their own breakthrough moment.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Three more outs, and their mounting frustrations might finally subside.<\/p>\n \u201cBig hit right there,\u201d manager Dave Roberts<\/a> said. \u201cObviously, you felt it in the dugout.\u201d<\/p>\n What the Dodgers felt next, however, might last much longer.<\/p>\n On a night they could have resuscitated their season, they instead found a new way to crumble. In the kind of collapse that has become all too common of late, they let yet another winnable game go meekly by the wayside.<\/p>\n Shohei Ohtani reacts after hitting a go-ahead solo homer in the ninth. (Gina Ferazzi \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n In the bottom of the ninth, the Dodgers blew their one-run lead after Alex Vesia gave up a leadoff single, a walk and an eventual Nolan Schanuel sacrifice fly.<\/p>\n In the bottom of the 10th, they dropped their fifth straight game against the Angels<\/a> this season when Jo Adell sent a high-chopping, three-hopping, walk-off RBI single over the head of drawn-in third baseman Max Muncy<\/a>.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The final score: Angels 7, Dodgers 6<\/a>.<\/p>\n The state of the Dodgers\u2019 season: somehow finding a way to continue to spiral.<\/p>\n \u201cI think you can sense the frustration,\u201d first baseman Freddie Freeman<\/a> said in a somber postgame clubhouse.<\/p>\n \u201cYou look at the standings,\u201d Roberts added, \u201cand we just got to play better baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n In the most consequential twist of the Dodgers\u2019 stunning midseason meltdown, the team has seen its once-comfortable lead in the National League West vanish in barely a month.<\/p>\n Entering play on July 4, the Dodgers were nine games clear of the San Diego Padres, and had a 98% likelihood in Fangraphs\u2019 computer models of winning the division for a fourth straight time.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n But since then, the Dodgers have gone 12-20. The Padres, with the help of significant roster upgrades at the trade deadline, are 22-12. And now, with a pair of series between the clubs looming in each of the next two weekends, the teams are tied for first place at 68-52<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s a new season,\u201d Roberts acknowledged postgame.<\/p>\n Teammates swarm Jo Adell after his walk-off hit. (Gina Ferazzi \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n And the final step in getting there could have hardly wrought any more hurt.<\/p>\n Entering Tuesday, the Angels were scrambling. Projected veteran starter Tyler Anderson was scratched with back tightness. Rookie right-hander Victor Mederos was called up for his MLB debut on just three days\u2019 rest. And in the first inning, the Dodgers took the lead in the span of four at-bats, with Ohtani drawing a walk, Mookie Betts getting hit by a pitch and Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez<\/a> (fresh off an off day on Monday) opening the scoring with an RBI single to left.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n But then, in a predictable turn, the team quickly started to spring leaks.<\/p>\n Muncy lined into a double play to end the first, with Hern\u00e1ndez getting doubled off at the bag at first. Emmet Sheehan gave up three runs in the bottom of the inning, then two more over the third and fourth innings after Dalton Rushing tied things with a two-run homer in the second. And even though the Dodgers pulled level again with a two-out rally in the fifth, Michael Conforto<\/a> struck out swinging to leave the bases loaded, dropping him to three for 30 since his brief resurgence in July.<\/p>\n \u201cThere’s just certain things that you can kind of manage and control, and I don’t think we’re doing a good enough job with that,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cThese last three weeks or whatever it’s been, we just haven’t stacked clean, good, solid baseball games together. And once we feel like we do, then we don’t. So I know we\u2019re all frustrated.\u201d<\/p>\n Those frustrations came to a head in the sixth.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Miguel Rojas led off with a pinch-hit single. Rushing followed in the nine-hole with his second hit of the night. And as Ohtani came to the plate, an opportunity arose to get the ship righted.<\/p>\n Instead\u2026<\/p>\n Ohtani hit a line drive to shortstop Zach Neto<\/a>, who then beat Rojas back to the bag at second, before firing to first where Rushing was caught too far off the bag.<\/p>\n Bing, bang, boom.<\/p>\n One out, then two, then three for a head-spinning, inning-ending, rally-killing triple play.<\/p>\n \u201cThat’s how it’s [been] going,\u201d Roberts quipped. \u201cBut again, you got to make your own breaks.”<\/p>\n Read more: More bad news for Dodgers’ bullpen: Brock Stewart goes on the IL<\/a><\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Instead\u2026<\/p>\n What had been a strong night from the Dodgers\u2019 bullpen \u2014 which got scoreless innings from Jack Dreyer, Edgardo Henriquez and Blake Treinen in the sixth, seventh and eighth \u2014 came unraveled with Vesia\u2019s blown save in the ninth.<\/p>\n \u201cTonight was by far one of my worst outings of the year,\u201d said Vesia, who had been the Dodgers’ most dependable reliever this year before yielding runs in each of his last three outings. \u201cSuper frustrating. I\u2019m kind of at a loss for words.\u201d<\/p>\n And though Ben Casparius got the game to extras by wiggling out of a bases-loaded threat later in the inning \u2014 with the help of a generous strike call on what could have been a walk-off walk \u2014 the Dodgers went down quietly in the top of the 10th to set up the season’s latest gut punch.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n On a night so close to being so celebratory, the team instead suffered another calamity.<\/p>\n![\"Shohei](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/6a3b306beb444e5379abe926c4ce0f5d.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n![\"Teammates](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/b211cd99acb38d5a4e674248c4e1aed7.jpeg\"\/)
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