a 5-0 win<\/a> over the Philadelphia Phillies to maintain a two-game lead in the National League West standings.<\/p>\n\u201cIt\u2019s one of those moments,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cHe was adamant he wanted that last hitter. And I trusted him. And he finished him off the right way. Just a huge boost for us. Just a great performance from pitch one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Entering Wednesday, all the discussion around the Dodgers (85-67) had centered on the bullpen. The slumping unit was coming off two of its worst performances of the season. The majority of Roberts\u2019 pregame address with reporters was spent dissecting how to fix it.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore the results, has to be confidence,\u201d Roberts said, comparing the relief corps\u2019 struggles to the second-half scuffles that the offense only recently emerged from. \u201cIt\u2019s just kind of trying to reset a mentality, a mindset and expect that things happen. \u2026 You can\u2019t chase a zero in an inning until you execute the first pitch, and then keep going like that. And I think that right now you can see that they\u2019re kind of trying a little too hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Wednesday night, however, Snell offered a reminder:<\/p>\n
While the relief corps remains a work in progress, a surging rotation can make their life a whole lot easier.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday night, however, Snell made their job easy.<\/p>\n
Efficient from the start with the kind of aggressive, attacking game plan he had acknowledged was missing in his last three outings, Snell went to work quickly against the Phillies (91-62) and their star-studded lineup.<\/p>\n
In the first, he retired the side in order on eight pitches and two strikeouts. In the second, he went 1-2-3 again with a couple more Ks. Brief trouble arose in the third, when Bryson Stott and Harrison Bader hit back-to-back singles.<\/p>\n
But then, Snell froze Kyle Schwarber with a curveball for a called third strike, starting a run of 12 straight batters he would retire into the seventh.<\/p>\n
\u201cAny time I face a really good team, I try to bring the best out of myself,\u201d said Snell, who finished the night with a season-high 12 strikeouts while lowering his ERA to 2.44. \u201cI think the biggest thing was just command. I could command the fastball, which really set up the offspeed. And then the sequencing was really good today \u2026 Just felt comfortable attacking the zone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, Snell painted corners with his heater, which he ran up to 97 mph. He got foolish swings on his breaking pitches, inducing 24 whiffs on 54 swing attempts. His curveball was particularly lethal, accounting for seven of his 12 Ks. And he kept his workload under control, throwing more than 17 pitches in just one of his first six innings.<\/p>\n
\u201c[His curveball] comes from the rafters. His fastball is taking off like a jet,\u201d said catcher Ben Rortvedt, who started his third straight game behind the plate even with Dalton Rushing back from a leg injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was speeding \u2018em up, slowing \u2018em down, landing stuff in the zone, not getting in hitters\u2019 counts,\u201d Rortvedt. \u201cIt was really impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Freddie](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1758183139_65_\")
<\/p>\n
Freddie Freeman reacts towards the Dodger bullpen after homering in the second inning Wednesday.<\/p>\n
(Gina Ferazzi \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n
In the meantime, the Dodgers built a lead. Freddie Freeman homered to lead off the second. Ben Rortvedt (starting his third straight game behind the plate, even with Dalton Rushing back from a leg injury) added an RBI single later in the inning, following an Andy Pages hit-and-run single that put runners on the corners.<\/p>\n
Another run came around in the fourth, after Pages worked a two-out walk, stole second, took third on a wild pickoff throw and scored on an RBI single from Kik\u00e9 Hern\u00e1ndez (who played third base in place of Max Muncy, who still felt \u201cfuzzy\u201d on Tuesday from a hit-by-pitch he took to the head over the weekend).<\/p>\n
And by the time they reached the seventh, the Dodgers were under no discernible stress.<\/p>\n
That changed after walks to Nick Castellanos and Max Kepler with two outs in the inning, pulling Roberts out of the dugout as left-hander Alex Vesia got warm in the bullpen. For a brief moment, it appeared the game would turn over to the relievers. Vesia was halfway to the mound as Roberts went to consult with Snell.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanted to feel and hear what he had to say,\u201d Roberts said.<\/p>\n
Snell\u2019s answer, after a few shakes of his head: \u201cPlease. Keep me in. I got it.\u201d<\/p>\n
To the delight of a packed crowd of 50,859, the Roberts simply nodded, and kept the ball in Snell\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt meant a lot that he trusted me,\u201d Snell said later. \u201cI don\u2019t like the bullpen finishing my innings \u2026 I don\u2019t want them in that situation. I put myself in this, I can pitch my way out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
On his 112th pitch of the night, that\u2019s exactly what Snell did. <\/p>\n
In a 2-and-2 count, Kemp flailed at an elevated fastball. Snell went screaming off the mound with a pump of his fist. In the dugout, Roberts raised a clenched hand in the air, then applauded with his arms above his head. Chavez Ravine erupted all around them, serenading the first truly signature moment of Snell\u2019s Dodgers tenure.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s obviously not something that Blake needs to prove to anyone, because he\u2019s got that hardware,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cBut it\u2019s still good for our guys, for him, with a new ballclub, to pitch playoff-type baseball against a potential playoff opponent, and to put forth that performance.\u201d<\/p>\n
The next two innings were refreshingly simple. Vesia retired the side in the top of the eighth. The Dodgers made it a five-run lead by scoring twice in the bottom half of the frame, including on Shohei Ohtani\u2019s 51st home run of the season. Embattled closer Tanner Scott spun a stress-free ninth, pitching three consecutive scoreless outings for the first time since early July.<\/p>\n
\u201cBig confidence boost,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cTo play a normal game and win it the way we should have won it, I think we all feel really good about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Come October, it\u2019s the kind of blueprint the Dodgers will have to try and replicate repeatedly to defend their World Series title.<\/p>\n
Their bullpen still needs fixing. Their relief issues aren\u2019t solved. But more gems like Snell\u2019s would go a long way towards helping.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dave Roberts started out of the dugout with a walk. Once Blake Snell caught his gaze, it turned…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":235902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[11632,27043,19497,1582,276,52750,875,126707,2381,81808,3688,2961,224,5337,126708,20414,54078,6620,79783,28447],"class_list":{"0":"post-235901","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-batter","9":"tag-blake-snell","10":"tag-bullpen","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-california","13":"tag-corner","14":"tag-dave-roberts","15":"tag-dodgers-uniform","16":"tag-dugout","17":"tag-first-pitch","18":"tag-inning","19":"tag-la","20":"tag-los-angeles","21":"tag-losangeles","22":"tag-otto-kemp","23":"tag-phillies","24":"tag-single","25":"tag-time","26":"tag-walk","27":"tag-wednesday-night"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115224297128920710","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}