Shohei Ohtani opened and nearly finished a night the Los Angeles Dodgers will remember: Ohtani, Will Klein and Tanner Scott combined to carry a no-hit bid into the eighth inning before a two-out single ended it on May 27, 2026 in Los Angeles.
Ohtani set the tone early, drilling a leadoff home run in the bottom of the first — his second straight mound start in which he went deep — and then stifled Colorado hitters on the mound. He worked six innings of one-run ball, striking out seven while issuing four walks, and left after throwing 99 pitches, 56 of them for strikes. His outing left his earned-run average at 0.82.
The numerical weight of the night was stark: Ohtani and Klein produced seven hitless innings, Klein retired the side in the seventh with help from an inning-ending double play, and Tanner Scott took the ball in the eighth. The combined run through seven frames had the Dodgers riding a no-hit game, only to see it broken by Tyler Freeman’s two-out single to right off Scott in the eighth.
Ohtani’s one earned run came in the fourth inning on a groundout to second by Willi Castro — the lone scoring play against him — yet he still finished with seven strikeouts. He left with 99 pitches on the board, a figure that underscored both his dominance and the traffic on the bases: four walks spread across six innings.
The scene in Los Angeles was a rare collision of offense and starting pitching from one player. Ohtani’s leadoff homer provided immediate payoff at the plate, and his six innings of one-run work at the other end of the game anchored the staff’s push for a combined gem. Klein’s clean seventh, aided by the double play that erased a potential rally, pushed the bid into the late innings and set the stage for Scott to try to finish what the starters had begun.
Context matters: this was a combined effort that lasted through seven innings before unraveling in the eighth. The Dodgers’ near-miss was not a simple single-pitch fluke; it was the product of Ohtani’s deep start, Klein’s inning of damage control and Scott’s late-inning appearance. For the Rockies, the lone hit that saved them from being blanked completely arrived with two outs in the eighth — a timing detail that makes the difference between a historic no-hitter and a very good night.
The tension of the outing was built into the box score. Ohtani struck out seven but also walked four and allowed an earned run, a combination that shows how he can be both dominant and eventful in the same game. He tossed 99 pitches, 56 for strikes, and was removed before the eighth; the bullpen’s job was therefore both the obvious next step and the gamble. That gamble ended when Tyler Freeman found a hole for a two-out single, denying the Dodgers a completed combined no-hitter.
What matters next is plain and immediate: the game left Shohei Ohtani with a 0.82 ERA and the Dodgers with a near-historic performance that slipped away late. The outing highlighted Ohtani’s two-way impact — a leadoff home run and six strong innings on the mound — and it showed how thin the margin is between a perfect headline and a memorable near-miss. For the la dodgers, the night will be remembered for its narrowness: seven hitless frames turned into eight innings of baseball, and a two-out single turned a potential no-hitter into a footnote in a larger season picture.
