The standing ovation that Jack Flaherty received from a Dodger Stadium crowd of 48,664 when he departed in the sixth inning of Friday night’s 9-5 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates didn’t seem commensurate with his performance in his first home start for his hometown team.
Flaherty, the 28-year-old right-hander who was acquired from the Detroit Tigers with minutes to spare before the July 30 trade deadline, was tagged for four earned runs and nine hits in 5 ⅔ innings and needed just about every one of his 10 strikeouts to navigate heavy traffic on the basepaths throughout his 110-pitch effort.
But the rousing ovation was as much a welcome-home-and-we’re-glad-you’re here message to Flaherty, a Burbank native who began going to Dodgers games with his mother, Eileen, when he was an infant and pitched Harvard-Westlake High School to the Southern Section Division I championship on this very mound in 2013.
Flaherty wasn’t nearly as sharp as he was in his Dodgers debut, when he gave up five hits with seven strikeouts and one walk in six scoreless innings of a 10-0 win at Oakland on Aug. 3. He was handed a six-run lead through three innings and nearly made a game of it by giving up a solo homer in the fourth and a three-run shot in the fifth.
But he kept the Pirates at arm’s length and helped the Dodgers retain their National League West lead of 2 ½ games over the San Diego Padres and 3 ½ games over the Arizona Diamondbacks by making several big pitches to escape jams.
The Dodgers staked Flaherty to a 6-0 lead on the strength of Freddie Freeman’s solo homer in the first and a five-run third-inning rally that featured Shohei Ohtani’s NL-leading 35th home run, a towering, two-run shot off right-hander Mitch Keller that left his bat at 113.9 mph and traveled 448 feet to center field.
Teoscar Hernández walked and took third on Freeman’s double to left-center. Will Smith, mired in a three-for-44 slump (.068) over 12 games since July 22, dunked a check-swing, two-run single to right field, took second on a wild pitch and scored on Miguel Rojas’ single to center.
The Pirates cut the deficit to 6-1 in the fourth on Oneil Cruz’s leadoff homer to right, his 18th of the season. Flaherty gave up a one-out single to Rowdy Tellez and a two-out single to Ke’Bryan Hayes before striking out Yasmani Grandal with a 95-mph fastball to end the inning.
The Dodgers pushed the lead to 7-1 in the bottom of the fourth when Jason Heyward doubled to right-center and scored on Hernández’s two-out single to right, the 30th two-out RBI of the season for the outfielder.
Flaherty looked as if he might escape another jam in the top of the fifth when, after one-out singles by Isiah Kiner-Falefa and Bryan Reynolds, he struck out Cruz with a 78-mph knuckle-curve for the second out.
But he hung an 85-mph slider over the heart of the plate to cleanup batter Joey Bart, who drove a three-run homer to left-center, his 10th of the season, to pull Pittsburgh to within 7-4.
The Dodgers’ response to Flaherty’s rough inning? We got your back.
Smith walked to open the bottom of the fifth, and Kiké Hernández — on his 11th pitch from right-hander Domingo Germán — sent a two-out laser over the head of the left fielder, Reynolds, who leaped on the warning track and got the tip of his glove on the ball, only to knock it over the wall for a two-run homer and a 9-4 Dodgers lead.
That allowed manager Dave Roberts to extend his leash on Flaherty, who walked Bryan De La Cruz to open the sixth and gave up a two-out single to Michael Taylor before being pulled in favor of left-hander Anthony Banda, who struck out Kiner-Falefa to end the inning.
Banda struck out two in a scoreless seventh, Evan Phillips retired the side in order with two strikeouts in the eighth, and Daniel Hudson gave up a run in the ninth.
Short hops
Third baseman Max Muncy, out since May 16 because of an oblique strain, and newly acquired utility man Tommy Edman, who is recovering from an ankle injury, will begin minor league rehabilitation assignments with triple-A Oklahoma City on Saturday. Roberts said both could be activated “in about a week,” and that Edman will get most of his playing time in center field. … Right-hander Walker Buehler, who gave up one run and one hit in 5 ⅓ innings, striking out five and walking three, for Oklahoma City on Thursday night probably will return to the rotation next Thursday in Milwaukee.
