Dodgers Bullpen Falters as Blue Jays Avoid Sweep

TORONTO — The sweep was there for the taking. Instead, the Dodgers were left to pack for home with a reminder that even early April baseball has a way of humbling a team that looks nearly untouchable on paper.

On Wednesday afternoon at Rogers Centre, the Dodgers watched a late lead dissolve in a 4–3 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays — a game that felt firmly in hand until it suddenly wasn’t.

And in the middle of it all was Shohei Ohtani, whose afternoon somehow managed to be both historic and human.

For six innings, Ohtani didn’t have his best stuff. That much was clear. The crisp dominance of his season debut gave way to something more methodical, more workmanlike.

But still, it worked.

He scattered four hits, struck out two, and didn’t allow an earned run across six innings. Efficient enough. Controlled enough. Good enough to win.

Yet the streak — the one that had quietly built into one of the early storylines of the season — came to an end.

An RBI double by Jesús Sánchez in the third inning snapped Ohtani’s scoreless stretch at 24 2/3 innings, the longest active run by a starting pitcher entering the day.

It was, in many ways, inevitable.

And largely irrelevant to the bigger picture: Ohtani still owns a 0.00 ERA through his first 12 innings of the season.

At the plate, he kept making history anyway. A leadoff walk extended his on-base streak to 43 games, tying him for sixth-longest in Dodgers history and leaving him one shy of passing Ichiro Suzuki for the longest streak by a Japanese-born player.

Even on a day when the streak ended, another one lived on.

That’s the Ohtani paradox.

The Middle Innings: Dodgers Take Control

After falling behind 1–0, the Dodgers did what good lineups do — they answered without panic.

In the fourth, Will Smith sparked things with an infield hit and aggressive baserunning, setting the stage for Freddie Freeman. Freeman lined a single to center, tying the game and continuing a quietly productive series in which he drove in four runs.

An inning later, the Dodgers seemed ready to break it open. Smith and Freeman singled. Max Muncy walked. Bases loaded, nobody out.

That was the end of the day for Dylan Cease, who struck out eight but left with traffic everywhere.

The Dodgers cashed in — barely. A sacrifice fly from Teoscar Hernández gave them a 2–1 lead. Not a knockout punch, but a lead nonetheless.

They added what felt like important insurance in the seventh when Smith — again — delivered, finishing a 2-for-3 day with two runs scored and pushing the lead to 3–1.

At that point, the script looked familiar: strong Ohtani start, timely hitting, bullpen to close. Until it didn’t.

The Unraveling

Dave Roberts turned to Jack Dreyer to protect the two-run lead in the seventh. It unraveled almost immediately.

A walk. A single. A double. Another single.

Just like that, the game was tied — and the Dodgers bullpen, perfect in those spots to start the season, had its first crack.

Roberts called on Blake Treinen to stop the bleeding. He did, escaping further damage. But the tone had already shifted.

In the eighth, the game slipped away in a way that will linger longer than any home run would have.

With runners on the corners, Andrés Giménez broke for second. The throw skipped towards center field, eluding Miguel Rojas, and the go-ahead run crossed the plate.

No loud contact. No towering drive. Just a small mistake with big consequences.

A Loss — and a Larger Takeaway

For a team that had not blown a late lead all season, this was less about one inning and more about the inevitability of baseball’s long arc.

The Dodgers finished the road trip 5–1. They got length from Ohtani. They saw continued production from Smith and Freeman. They nearly completed a sweep.

And still, they left Toronto with a loss that felt preventable. That’s the nature of a 162-game season — even for a team built to dominate.

The Dodgers head home to face the Texas Rangers with momentum intact, if slightly dented.

The sweep slipped away. The bigger picture didn’t.