Shohei Ohtani dominates Padres as Dodgers take series at Petco Park

SAN DIEGO — Shohei Ohtani walked off the mound at Petco Park on Wednesday night with the same look he’s carried for much of this season,  equal parts exhausted, focused and entirely in control.

The Dodgers needed their superstar to be dominant in the biggest game of this early-season stretch against the Padres, and Ohtani delivered exactly that.

Five gritty scoreless innings. A leadoff home run on the very first pitch of the game. A bases-loaded escape punctuated by a primal roar after getting Fernando Tatis Jr. to bounce into an inning-ending double play.

That was the night in one sequence.

Denis Poroy-Imagn Images

Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Shohei Ohtani (17) delivers during the first inning against the San Diego Padres at Petco Park.

And in a season that is starting to feel historic, Ohtani added another chapter as the Dodgers beat the Padres, 4-0, to take the series in San Diego and improve to 31-19 through 50 games.

The Dodgers now have a 1 ½ lead over the Padres in the N.L West Division.

For all the highlights, this wasn’t Ohtani at his sharpest. That’s what made it more impressive.

“A lot of uncertainty coming into this outing because the feel wasn’t great,” Ohtani said afterward. “The results were good but as you saw, the process wasn’t that great.”

The scary part for the rest of baseball is that Ohtani can dominate without his best stuff now.

Dave Roberts saw it too.

“It just didn’t seem he had as much,” Roberts said. “He wasn’t really letting it rip as early and as long and as consistent as we’ve seen in other outings. But he still has a way to use his pitch sequence and still get guys out.”

The game started with a reminder that there may never be another player like him.

First pitch from Randy Vásquez. Gone.

Ohtani demolished a leadoff homer to immediately hand the Dodgers a 1-0 lead before ever stepping onto the mound. It was his 20th leadoff homer as a Dodger since the start of 2024 and the 27th of his career.

“The goal was as the pitcher not to give up the first run,” Ohtani said. “I’m glad I was able not to do that. Happy we were able to score first.”

Roberts believed the swing changed the entire tone of Ohtani’s night.

“Leading off with a homer got him in a good place mentally,” Roberts said.

The Padres never fully recovered.

Ohtani scattered three hits across five innings, allowing no runs while striking out four. His ERA dropped to an absurd 0.73, putting him alongside some of the greatest starts to a season in modern baseball history.

Only Fernando Valenzuela (0.50 in 1981), Mike Norris (0.52 in 1980), Zack Greinke (0.60 in 2009), Al Benton (0.70 in 1945) and Jacob deGrom (0.71 in 2021) posted lower ERAs through eight starts in the Live Ball Era.

And unlike everyone else on that list, Ohtani is also hitting missiles at the top of the lineup.

The fifth inning became the defining moment of the game.

A bloop single. Another hit. A walk. Suddenly the bases were loaded with no margin for error and Petco Park finally woke up.

This is where Ohtani the pitcher has evolved the most.

Earlier in his career, moments like that sometimes spiraled. Now he slows the game down. He trusts the sequence. He trusts the moment.

Tatis rolled the ball toward second base. Double play. Inning over.

Ohtani screamed walking off the mound, releasing everything from an inning that nearly unraveled.

“I loved the results, but I walked the guy before,” Ohtani said. “That wasn't quite exactly what I wanted to do there, so the results were good.”

That answer perfectly captures where Ohtani is mentally as a pitcher right now. He’s no longer chasing brilliance. He’s chasing precision.

The numbers with runners in scoring position show how devastating he has become under pressure. Opponents are hitting just .100 against him in those situations this season.

This is Cy Young-level dominance. The Dodgers backed him with just enough offense.

Teoscar Hernández added a sacrifice fly in the second inning. Kyle Tucker delivered an RBI single in the fifth. Hernández crushed a towering homer into the second deck in the ninth to finish things off.

But this game belonged to pitching.

After Ohtani exited at 88 pitches,  the heavy workload of hitting and pitching clearly part of the calculation, the Dodgers bullpen kept rolling. Edgardo Henriquez, Blake Treinen, Kyle Hurt and Will Klein combined to finish the shutout.

The Dodgers have now thrown 15 consecutive scoreless innings against San Diego and the bullpen has piled up 28 straight scoreless innings overall, the franchise’s longest streak since 1998.

Hurt, in particular, continues looking like one of Roberts’ most trusted high-leverage weapons. He has now thrown 13 innings without allowing an earned run, lowering his ERA to 0.64.

And while the Dodgers continue piling up wins, the larger picture is becoming impossible to ignore.

Through 25 road games this season, the Dodgers have:

• 16 wins

• A plus-80 run differential

• Twice as many home runs hit as allowed (36 to 18)

The only other team in Major League history to accomplish all of that through 25 road games was the 1902 Pittsburgh Pirates.

That’s the company this Dodgers team is entering now. And at the center of it all is Ohtani, who somehow continues redefining what a baseball superstar can look like.

Ohtani was asked after the game about balancing his identities as a hitter and pitcher, Ohtani gave the simplest answer of the night.

“It’s just the probability of winning the game.”

Right now, nobody in baseball increases those odds more than he does.