There was no primal scream, no exaggerated fist pump, and very little outward emotion from the Dodgers’ newest pitcher.
Instead, in the defining moment of an auspicious team debut for Jack Flaherty on Saturday night at the Oakland Coliseum, the veteran pitcher simply tapped his glove, chewed on some gum and returned to his new team’s dugout with a confident nod of his head.
In the Dodgers’ 10-0 win over the Oakland Athletics, Flaherty delivered everything the team had been hoping for when it acquired him in a blockbuster deadline-day trade with the Detroit Tigers on Tuesday.
He pitched six shutout innings, leading the way in what was only the Dodgers’ third win in their last nine games.
Read more: L.A. native Jack Flaherty excited by ‘special’ Dodgers opportunity, downplays back concerns
He racked up seven strikeouts and 16 swings and misses, flashing the kind of premium stuff they hope will bolster a starting rotation battling injuries and searching for frontline pitching.
Most of all, with the game on the line in a bases-loaded, no-outs jam in the bottom of the sixth, the Dodgers put their trust in Flaherty.
Then they watched him embrace the pressure.
During a nine-pitch sequence, the right-hander induced a fielder’s choice grounder, a swing-and-miss strikeout and an inning-ending two-hopper back up the middle — giving the Dodgers both a tantalizing sample of his resurgent 2024 season, in which he is now 8-5 with a 2.80 ERA, and a much-needed, high-leverage, skid-snapping sigh of relief.
When the Dodgers landed Flaherty as the centerpiece of their trade deadline haul on Tuesday — acquiring what many believed was the best pitcher to be dealt on this year’s trade market — they immediately saddled the veteran right-hander with weighty late-season expectations.
The Dodgers needed Flaherty to be a top-of-the-rotation pitcher and solidify a rotation unsettled by key absences (including Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Walker Buehler) and recent underperformances (epitomized by clunkers from Clayton Kershaw and Gavin Stone earlier this week).
They needed the 28-year-old to be an October weapon, the kind they’d lacked too often in recent postseason failures.
And, right from the jump, they also needed a strong team debut out of the Harvard-Westlake product, hopeful Flaherty could halt a recent 2-6 skid that had eaten into Dodgers’ once-comfortable National League West lead.
“I’m looking forward to seeing Jack take the baseball,” manager Dave Roberts said Friday night on the eve of Flaherty’s first Dodgers start, “and be a stopper for us.”
In his six-inning, seven-strikeout, 99-pitch outing, Flaherty proved to be just that — if not a little bit more.
With a 93-mph fastball and devastating duo of sliders and curveballs, the L.A. native mostly cruised through his first game with his hometown team. He worked around a pair of softly hit singles in the first inning, retiring the side with back-to-back strikeouts. He sat down 12 of 13 hitters between the second and fifth innings, with the lone base hit coming on a line drive that ricocheted off his lower right leg (after a quick check from the trainer, Flaherty stayed in the game).
The sixth-inning jam was hardly his fault, either, with Cavan Biggio committing a throwing error and JJ Bleday dropping a bloop single into left field before a Brent Rooker walk loaded the bags with no outs.
At that point, Flaherty had thrown 90 pitches. The Dodgers’ lead was only 2-0. And left-hander Alex Vesia was warming in the bullpen.
Roberts, however, stayed put in the dugout. Three batters later, his faith in Flaherty was rewarded.
Read more: Plaschke: Jack Flaherty gives Dodgers dramatic trade deadline victory
Saturday marked a day of changes for the Dodgers — and not just because they grew their division lead (from four to 4½ games) for the first time in almost a week.
Roberts mixed up his lineup pregame, flipping slumping Will Smith and steady Teoscar Hernández in the Nos. 2 and 4 spots of the batting order. The Dodgers’ shorthanded offense capitalized on several opportunities as well, getting a two-run, two-out single from Gavin Lux in the third inning before tacking on two insurance runs in the eighth and six more in the ninth.
In between that, though, Flaherty’s dominance was the most encouraging story of the night — providing the Dodgers exactly what they needed amid their recent slide, and an example of what they’ll want from him the rest of the season.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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