Shohei Ohtani didn’t waste a minute, leading off the Dodgers 4-3 win against the White Sox Tuesday with a home run into the visitors bullpen at Guaranteed Rate Field.
The L.A. superstar’s 376-foot shot against right-hander Chris Flexen barely missed the glove of right fielder Tommy Pham at the top of the fence.
Ohtani, who leads the majors with 24 homers, has at least one RBI in nine straight games, matching a franchise record last accomplished by Roy Campanella in 1955.
The Sox scored three in the bottom of the first against right-hander Bobby Miller, two on Andrew Benintendi’s sixth homer.
Ohtani walked and scored on Freddie Freeman’s two-run homer in the third and gave the Dodgers a 4-3 lead with a two-out RBI single in the fourth.
Flexen (5.13 ERA) allowed four runs on six hits and three walks over 5 2/3 innings, throwing 106 innings.
The Sox are 21-60 at the halfway point of the season. The Dodgers are 50-31.
Crochet’s workload
Garrett Crochet is easing into a time of reduced workload, his 91-pitch start abruptly halted Monday while cruising with a shutout in the sixth inning.
Easing up has been in the forecast for some time.
“There’s a plan in place,” manager Pedro Grifol said. “I’m not going to post that plan for everybody to see it, because there’s nothing black and white in this game, everything’s always gray and you can always make adjustments to everything. It all depends on the stress he’s going through every inning. But it’s in place.”
Crochet is at 17 starts and 94 1/3 innings after throwing 12 1/3 innings in relief last season and missing 2022 after Tommy John surgery.
“A lot of it has to do with how he’s feeling, what our bio-mechanists are saying, what our strength-and-conditioning [staff] are saying, what he’s saying, what we see,” Grifol said. “So there’s a lot going into these decisions.”
Crochet owns a 3.05 ERA, leads the majors with 12.59 strikeouts per nine innings and is second with 124 strikeouts.
Advice for Robert Jr.: Don’t chase
Luis Robert Jr. was hesitant to take big leads off first base earlier in his career, apprehensive about getting picked off. He also hates getting called out on strikes, so he sometimes chases pitches out of the zone with two strikes, although his overall chase rate is down of late.
“We have to remind him to swing at good pitches regardless,” Grifol said.
The belief is that Robert, who was 12-for-63 with five homers in his last 18 games since coming off the injured list, will be a devastating hitter with better control of the zone.
Robert singled and scored on Eloy Jimenez’ double in the Sox’ three-run first but finished 1-for-5 with no strikeouts.
Wednesday sellout
Wednesday’s series finale is sold out. The series has attracted many Dodgers and Shohei Ohtani fans, and Wednesday is Mexican Heritage Night with a jersey giveaway. Monday’s game drew 25,070 and Tuesday’s paid crowd was 23,662.
Through 38 home games, the Sox are averaging 16,892 in attendance, 26th among 30 teams. They averaged 21,405 last year, ranking 24th.
This and that
The Braves changed their starting pitcher for a 3:10 p.m. makeup game at Guaranteed Rate Field from Charlie Morton to former Sox Chris Sale. Drew Thorpe starts for the Sox.
*The Sox were 0-for-9 with runners in scoring position after going 0-for-5 with RISP in their 3-0 loss to the Dodgers Monday.
*Wednesday starter Erick Fedde is 4-0 with a 0.95 ERA in six home starts compared to 1-2, 4.47 on the road.