In Game 2 of the World Series on Saturday night, Dodger Stadium fell quiet only twice.
The first lull was rectified quickly, with the Dodgers turning a tied score in the third inning into a comfortable lead with back-to-back home runs from Teoscar Hernández and Freddie Freeman.
The second silence, however, lasted much longer — serving as the only ominous moment at Chavez Ravine over two otherwise rollicking, victorious Fall Classic nights.
The Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees 4-2 on Saturday, surviving a ninth-inning scare to take a commanding two-games-to-none lead in this best-of-seven World Series.
But in the process, they watched superstar designated hitter Shohei Ohtani suffer a painful-looking shoulder injury after he jammed his left arm on a slide in the bottom of the seventh inning on an unsuccessful stolen-base attempt.
While manager Dave Roberts said the team wouldn’t know the full extent of Ohtani’s injury until he underwent an MRI exam — which was expected to take place either Saturday night or on Sunday‘s day off — the early signs suggested he had avoided a worst-case scenario.
According to Roberts, Ohtani suffered a shoulder subluxation, essentially a partial dislocation less severe than if his shoulder had fully popped out. In immediate postgame tests, Roberts said Ohtani’s shoulder strength and range of motion were good, leaving the team feeling “encouraged” about his status for the rest of this Series.
“Obviously I can’t speculate because we don’t [have] the scans yet,” Roberts said. “But after the range of motion, the strength test, I felt much better about it.”
Regardless of Ohtani’s status — he left the stadium shortly after the game without speaking to reporters — the Dodgers’ position in this World Series is nonetheless auspicious.
Of the 39 previous teams to win the first two games of a World Series on their home soil, 32 went on to win the whole thing.
And in a matchup that was expected to be relatively even, the Dodgers already have neutralized a few of the Yankees’ biggest strengths.
They have negated New York’s expected starting pitching advantage, battering Game 2 starter Carlos Rodón for four early runs while Yoshinobu Yamamoto worked 6⅓ innings of one-run, one-hit ball.
They have limited the superstar bats atop the Yankees lineup, most notably by striking out MVP-to-be Aaron Judge in six of nine at-bats.
Most of all, they have watched their own offense continue a clutch-hitting October surge.
On Saturday, the big moment came on Hernández’s and Freeman’s consecutive blasts in the third — the Dodgers’ first back-to-back home runs in the World Series since Pedro Guerrero and Steve Yeager went deep in Game 5 of their 1981 championship.
Entering that inning, a buzzing crowd of 52,725 had slipped into a momentary lull, quieted by a towering home run from Juan Soto in the top of the third that tied the score 1-1.
After Rodón got two quick outs, the Dodgers didn’t seem to have much brewing. But then Mookie Betts provided a spark, roping a line-drive single to left in a 3-and-1 count. Hernández caused an eruption two pitches later, ambushing a 1-and-0 fastball for a two-run shot the other way. Then Freeman completed the sudden detonation, following up his walk-off grand slam in Game 1 with another drive to the right-field pavilion off a full-count heater.
“We talk about this Dodger team being really good in leverage, when they get ahead in the count,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said, identifying a trend that also applied to Tommy Edman’s score-opening homer in the second, which came off a 2-and-0 fastball over the inner half of the plate.
“It was big,” Roberts added about the sequence. “We needed it, clearly.”
Especially with what happened four innings later, on Ohtani’s fateful slide into second base.
While Ohtani was only one for eight in Games 1 and 2 — plus a walk that put him on base in the seventh inning Saturday — the Dodgers simply would be a different team if they’re forced to play without him.
In the regular season, no one on the club came close to his production, which included the first 50-homer, 50-steal season in history. This postseason, few have provided as many momentum-swinging moments. Even in this World Series, Ohtani’s one hit — an eighth-inning double in Game 1 that helped the Dodgers tie the game and force extras — was necessary to set up Freeman’s heroics.
“It’s not going to be a good feeling,” Hernández said of the thought of an Ohtani-less lineup. “But if he can’t go on Monday, we just have to keep doing the thing we’ve been doing for the past couple weeks.”
In a season full of injury-riddled obstacles, playing without Ohtani would be arguably the most daunting.
“I’m not there,” Roberts said of the hypothetical, shutting down a question about that possibility in his postgame press conference. “I’m expecting him to be there. I’m expecting him to be in the lineup.”
Time will tell if such confidence was well-founded.
Ohtani’s injury occurred as he launched into a feet-first slide on his steal attempt, with replays showing his left hand getting jammed into the ground. For several moments after he was tagged out, Ohtani laid flat near the base, grimacing in what appeared to be significant pain. As he got back to his feet and was helped off the field by a trainer, he held his left arm suspended in front of him, careful not to jolt it as he headed toward the clubhouse.
Television cameras for Japanese broadcaster NHK even caught Ohtani saying in Japanese that his shoulder had popped out.
“The scene [was] very concerning,” Roberts said.
“He’s the best player in the game, and to see him on the ground in pain, it’s not a good feeling,” Edman added.
Ohtani’s spot in the lineup never came up again, as the Dodgers closed out Game 2 in a stressful ninth inning in which the Yankees scored once and load the bases against Blake Treinen before Alex Vesia recorded the final out.
Afterward, Roberts didn’t say if Ohtani would have been replaced had the game been extended.
“I didn’t even think that far,” Roberts claimed. “I’m just happy we didn’t have to get to that spot.”
But even with the win, the question will linger. In a Series in which almost everything else has been breaking their way, the Dodgers are going to New York with an MVP-sized concern to suddenly worry about.
