The Dodgers are all in, going for a three-peat.
And they might not have an extra ace up their sleeve anymore, but when the postseason begins, they’ll still hope to play their quad of aces — four of a kind that will beat almost every other hand.
But do the Dodgers have four aces? Or three? Or just a pair, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tarik Skubal?
Could the left groin tightness that chased Blake Snell from his last start after an inning linger into the postseason? Snell isn’t the sturdiest of starters, having missed most of the season because of shoulder fatigue and loose bodies in his left elbow. But the Dodgers suggest he’s going to be OK; Snell is slated for one last regular-season start.
And what about Tyler Glasnow?
Can the Dodgers trust the 6-foot-8 right-hander who missed three months because of back spasms?
Should they put their belief in the 11th-year pitcher who likely would be the odd man out in the postseason if Shohei Ohtani still were available to deal on the mound?
They’re going to have to trust Glasnow. And he’s going to have to trust himself.
“He’s a guy that you can’t put too much thought into him, or it starts getting in his own head,” said catcher Dalton Rushing, who is injured but enjoyed watching Glasnow find his footing in Friday’s 8-2 victory over the San Francisco Giants.
“It was a lot of fun to watch tonight,” Rushing said. “Looked like himself.”
After three suboptimal innings, Glasnow settled down in a trust-building exercise of an outing against the Giants and their triple A-caliber lineup.
He wasn’t the most efficient, the most pristine, the sharpest — but he was fit to throw 98 pitches and six innings.
Dodgers pitcher Tyler Glasnow got just his second win since April.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
To fight through after laboring with 59 pitches in the first three innings, to earn his second win since April and to help the Dodgers maintain their four-game buffer over the Atlanta Braves as they play to secure a first-round bye with eight games left.
There was no champagne hangover for Glasnow on Friday — he flew directly back to L.A. from Miami, skipping Thursday’s clubhouse party in Cincinnati, where the Dodgers celebrated clinching the National League West Division for the 13th time in 14 years — but how about a toast to good health?
Cheers to giving up just two runs, one each in the second and third innings. To walking only two batters and striking out 10. To giving up only three hard hits and producing 15 whiffs.
To feeling and pitching better.
“After that third inning, I just stopped trying to be quick,” Glasnow said. “Just go out and be athletic, and I think it started to feel a little bit more timed up.”
Glasnow came into Friday’s game — one of his final two regular-season starts — having given up eight runs on 11 hits and seven walks in his previous two starts, looking less than comfortable in both. Out of rhythm, out of sync.
“This is an important start, and he knows it,” manager Dave Roberts said before the game. “It’s certainly not do or die, but … just to kind of get back feeling good.”
Afterward, Roberts wasn’t thrilled with how Glasnow started, but liked how he finished.
“You could see him fighting himself a little bit,” Roberts said. “The fastball command wasn’t great early. Got a lot of strikeouts. Curveball wasn’t sharp. But I thought he did a good job of making pitches when he needed to. The slider got better, fastball command got better as the game went on. Good to see him get through six innings.”
It’ll be better yet for the Dodgers’ odds if Glasnow can carry Friday’s progress into his next start — and then into the playoffs, where he proved himself as a Dodger last season after an elbow sprain sidelined him for the 2024 postseason.
In the Dodgers’ 2025 World Series run, Glasnow made six appearances, three of them starts. He had a 1.69 ERA and averaged 10.5 strikeouts per nine innings. The stuff of aces.
“Today was a step in the right direction,” said Glasnow, the formerHart High School star, before leaving the clubhouse in flip-flops. “I’d rather kind of feel it, work through some stuff, and have a good one right before playoffs.
“I think I’m in a good spot right now.”
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: latimes.com
