{"id":282735,"date":"2025-10-06T23:30:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T23:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/282735\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T23:30:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T23:30:13","slug":"dodgers-vs-phillies-game-2-live-updates-score-and-highlights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/282735\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers vs. Phillies Game 2 live updates, score and highlights"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

PHILADELPHIA \u2014 The Dodgers<\/a> are hoping this NLDS doesn\u2019t return to Philadelphia again.<\/p>\n

But if it does, Shohei Ohtani<\/a> would start in a winner-take-all Game 5 next Saturday.<\/p>\n

Despite the three runs Ohtani gave up in the second inning of Game 1, the team was overall encouraged by how he bounced back \u2014 and how he attacked the Phillies\u2019 big three hitters of Trea Turner, Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper in particular. That trio was 0-for-nine against him with five strikeouts.<\/p>\n

\u201cShohei did a fantastic job of moving the ball around,\u201d Dodgers manager Dave Roberts<\/a> said, describing Ohtani\u2019s plan of attack \u2014 in which he got ahead early in counts by being aggressive in the zone, especially with secondary pitches \u2014 as something for the Dodgers\u2019 other pitchers to replicate over the rest of the series.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ve got to kind of change locations. You\u2019ve got to use the front to back. I thought his curveball was as good as I\u2019ve seen it. But you have to have these guys honor the fastball. They hunt locations. They hunt velocities. And you\u2019ve got to keep them guessing. You just can\u2019t be predictable. And I thought yesterday we did a fantastic job of not being predictable.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bigger question, for whenever Ohtani takes the mound again, is whether he will hit better the next time he plays both ways in a game.<\/p>\n

At the plate, Ohtani was 0-for-four in Game 1 with a walk and four strikeouts. He went down swinging on three pitches in his first at-bat, then took a called third strike in the three after that.<\/p>\n

Roberts conceded that Ohtani\u2019s focus on pitching might have hampered his approach as a hitter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI do think that on days that Shohei pitches, a large amount of the focus is on the pitching, which I understand,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cI know [Phillies starter Cristopher] S\u00e1nchez was good. But yeah, I mean, kind of trying to weather that three-run inning and kind of stay in there on the pitching side, I\u2019m sure had some kind of bleed in to the effect on the bat.\u201d<\/p>\n

During the regular season, Ohtani\u2019s hitting numbers were worse than normal when he also pitched. In his 14 pitching starts, he hit just .222 (albeit with four home runs and 12 RBIs) and struck out in more than one-third of his plate appearances. And in many of those games, he wasn\u2019t even making full-length starts.<\/p>\n

The postseason, of course, adds another dynamic given the extra scouting work that goes into pitching in October.<\/p>\n

Still, in his postgame press conference, Ohtani reiterated why fulfilling both roles remains a priority for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason why I\u2019m a two-way player is because that\u2019s who I am, and it\u2019s what I can do,\u201d Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. \u201cAnd also, at the same time, it\u2019s what the team wants. So that\u2019s the reason why I\u2019ve been doing this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA \u2014 The Dodgers are hoping this NLDS doesn\u2019t return to Philadelphia again. But if it does, Shohei…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":282736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1641,1582,276,53856,2442,1910,487,2961,17711,224,2444,5337,143955,14762,145819,139595,67884,143954,6620,24683],"class_list":{"0":"post-282735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-am","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-citizens-bank-park","12":"tag-dodgers","13":"tag-game","14":"tag-hbo-max","15":"tag-la","16":"tag-live-update","17":"tag-los-angeles","18":"tag-los-angeles-times","19":"tag-losangeles","20":"tag-national-league-division-series","21":"tag-odd","22":"tag-phillies-game","23":"tag-radio-broadcast","24":"tag-rest","25":"tag-tbs","26":"tag-time","27":"tag-trutv"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115329828600328280","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282735","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=282735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}