The standing ovation that Jack Flaherty received from the 48,664 spectators at Dodger Stadium when he left the field in the sixth inning of Friday night’s 9-5 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates seemed out of proportion to his performance in his first home game for his hometown team.
Flaherty, the 28-year-old right-hander signed by the Detroit Tigers minutes before the July 30 trade deadline, allowed four earned runs and nine hits in 5 ⅔ innings and needed virtually every one of his 10 strikeouts during his 110-pitch game to navigate heavy traffic on the basepaths.
Read more: “An unforgettable experience.” Jack Flaherty’s return to Dodger Stadium
But the thunderous applause was also a “welcome home, we’re glad you’re here” message to Flaherty, a Burbank native who went to Dodgers games with his mother Eileen as a toddler and led Harvard-Westlake High School to the Southern Section Division I championship on this very mound in 2013.
Flaherty wasn’t quite as good as he was in his debut for the Dodgers, when he allowed five hits, seven strikeouts and a walk in six scoreless innings in a 10-0 win at Oakland on Aug. 3. He had a six-run lead after three innings and nearly made it a game when he allowed a solo home run in the fourth inning and a three-run shot in the fifth.
But he held the Pirates at bay and helped the Dodgers win with several big shots, helping them maintain their lead in the National League West of 2 ½ games over the San Diego Padres and 3 ½ games over the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The Dodgers gave Flaherty a 6-0 lead thanks to Freddie Freeman’s solo home run in the first inning and a five-run rally in the third inning that included Shohei Ohtani’s 35th home run, setting an NL record. It was a massive two-run shot by right-hander Mitch Keller that left his bat at 113 mph and flew 450 feet to center field.
Teoscar Hernández worked a walk and reached third base on Freeman’s double to left center. Will Smith, who was three-for-44 low (.068) in 12 games since July 22, dunked a check-swing two-run single to right field, reached second base on a wild pitch and scored on Miguel Rojas’ RBI single to center.
The Pirates cut the deficit to 6-1 in the fourth inning when Oneil Cruz led off with a home run to right, his 18th of the season. Flaherty allowed a one-out single by Rowdy Tellez and a two-out single by Ke’Bryan Hayes before striking out Yasmani Grandal with a 95-mph fastball to end the inning.
The Dodgers extended their lead to 7-1 in the fourth inning when Jason Heyward hit a double to right-center and scored on Hernández’s two-out single to right, the outfielder’s 30th two-out RBI of the season.
It looked like Flaherty might escape another sticky situation in the fifth inning when he struck out Cruz with just one out on a 78 mph knuckle curve after singles by Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Bryan Reynolds for the second out.
But he hit an 85-mile-per-hour slider over the middle of home base to clean batter Joey Bart, who hit a three-run home run to left-center field – his 10th of the season – to bring Pittsburgh within 7-4.
The Dodgers’ response to Flaherty’s tough inning? We’ve got your back.
Smith led off with a walk to open the bottom of the fifth inning, and Kiké Hernández — on his 11th pitch from right-hander Domingo German — sent a laser throw with two outs over the head of left fielder Reynolds, who jumped to the warning track and touched the ball with the tip of his glove, but hit it over the wall for a two-run home run and gave the Dodgers a 9-4 lead.
That allowed Roberts to give more room to Flaherty, who walked De La Cruz and allowed a two-out single to Michael Taylor at the start of the sixth inning before being replaced by left-hander Anthony Banda, who threw out Kiner-Falefa to end the inning.
Banda managed two strikeouts in the scoreless seventh inning, Evan Phillips put the team out of action with two strikeouts in the eighth inning in order, and Daniel Hudson allowed a run in the ninth inning.
Short hops
Third baseman Max Muncy, out since May 16 with an oblique strain, and newly signed all-arounder Tommy Edman, recovering from an ankle injury, will begin minor league rehabilitation duties with Triple-A Oklahoma City on Saturday. Roberts said both could be ready to play “in about a week” and Edman will get most of the playing time in center field. … Right-hander Walker Buehler, who allowed one run and one hit in 5 ⅓ innings, five strikeouts and three walks for Oklahoma City on Thursday night, will likely return to the rotation next Thursday at Milwaukee.
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
