Roki Sasaki delivered the best start of his MLB career Friday night against the Angels (24-40) in what became a scoreless pitcher’s duel through the first eight innings. Freddie Freeman walked off with a solo home run in the bottom of the ninth to give the Dodgers the 1-0 win against the Angels in the series opener.
With his newfound confidence, Sasaki pitched a gem for the Dodgers (41-23). He allowed just two hits and struck out a career-high 10 batters in seven scoreless innings.
Sasaki looked sharp
and confident to start the game and series. He struck out Mike Trout and Wade Meckler with nasty splitters in the 1-2-3 first inning.
Sasaki didn’t receive any run support, but his defense had his back. Miguel Rojas made a ridiculous bare-hand throw to get Nick Madrigal out at first. Freeman stretched at first base on the other side of the play to finish it. The Dodgers challenged the safe call on the field, and it was overturned to give the Dodgers the second out of the inning in spectacular defensive fashion.
Sasaki was cooking through three innings, and hit 100.4 mph again on the radar gun with his fastball. The young right-hander looked wickedly good through four no-hit innings against the Angels lineup.
On the other side, the Dodgers were struggling to collect a hit against the lefty Detmers until Freeman singled with one out in the fourth. It would be Freeman’s bat which would ultimately win the game for the Dodgers and prevent a second straight extra-innings game.
Mookie Betts drew a walk to give the Dodgers their first base runner in scoring position, but Detmers used a backdoor breaking ball to strike out Will Smith looking and strand both runners.
Nick Madrigal roped a double to left field with one out in the fifth, the first base hit surrendered by Sasaki. The Angels weren’t able to muster anything else, and the scoreless pitcher’s duel continued.
Andy Pages singled against Detmers with one out in the bottom of the sixth. He tried to get something going for the Dodgers but was thrown out on a steal attempt of second base.
Sasaki picked up his 10th strikeout, a career high, utilizing that deadly splitter to send Nick Madrigal down swinging in the bottom of the seventh.
Max Muncy pinch-hit for Rojas to start the bottom of the eighth. Muncy was not in the starting lineup after the much-talked about collision at first base with Ildemaro Vargas the night prior. Muncy went down on strikes against Angels reliever Sam Bachman, and his offensive frustrations continued.
Alex Freeland was hit by a pitch on his thigh with one out in the bottom of the eighth, but Bachman also struck out Pages for a scoreless inning of his own.
It only takes one swing of the bat to win the deadlocked game in the bottom of the ninth. Freeman accepted the challenge and ended the 0-0 pitcher’s duel with a solo home run against old friend Kirby Yates to walk it off for the Dodgers. It was Freeman’s 20th career walk-off home run.
Friday particulars
Home runs: Freddie Freeman (10)
WP — Blake Treinen (3-1): 1 out to end the 8th
LP — Kirby Yates (0-2): gave up walk-off HR to Freeman
Up next
Yoshinobu Yamamoto (5-4, 2.86 ERA, 0.995 WHIP) takes on Jack Kochanowicz (2-4, 5.23 ERA, 1.48 WHIP) Saturday night in the second game of the series (7:10 p.m., SportsNet LA).
