Will Smiths walk-off home run rescues Dodgers in | College News

Twenty-nine hours before his official return to the Dodger Stadium mound, Emmet Sheehan took a second to get himself reacquainted with his home ballpark.

In an empty Dodger Stadium on Tuesday afternoon, Sheehan walked onto the sector at Chavez Ravine, climbed up a slope he hadn’t toed since the 2023 season, and practiced his pitching movement a few instances before returning to the clubhouse.

For Sheehan, such dry tosses are half of his regular pre-start routine. In any ballpark where he pitches, he likes to get a really feel for the mound and its environment before the sport.

The only distinction this time: how long it had been since he’d taken the bump in a big-league stadium.

After an auspicious rookie season in 2023, in which his 4.92 earned-run average belied the potential he flashed with his low-arm-slot, high-velocity supply, Sheehan missed all of final season and the first three months of this marketing campaign after present process Tommy John surgical procedure.

A former sixth-round draft choose who blossomed into one of the group’s prime pitching prospects during an spectacular minor-league profession, Sheehan grew to become one of the various homegrown Dodgers pitchers to endure a main surgical procedure after injuring his elbow in spring coaching final yr.

In latest months, however, his comparatively seamless restoration course of had fueled pleasure all through the group main up to his return on Wednesday.

And over 4 sharp innings in the Dodgers’ 4-3 win against the San Diego Padres — one that ended on a walk-off home run by Will Smith in the ninth — the 25-year-old right-hander confirmed precisely why.

With his fastball sitting around 95 mph, and a tantalizing mixture of sliders and changeups retaining Padres hitters off stability, Sheehan gave up just one run while hanging out six batters in his big-league return.

He threw 65 pitches, 43 for strikes. He didn’t subject a stroll, while yielding only three hits. And the lone rating against him got here when second baseman Tommy Edman failed to corral a hard-hit one-hopper with two outs in the highest of the second.

Other than that, he posted nothing but zeroes.

Sheehan wasn’t the profitable pitcher on Thursday. That honor went to one other former prospect, left-hander Justin Wrobleski, who adopted Sheehan with 5 stellar innings of long aid, flashing his own promising indicators (including a fastball that touched 99 mph at one level) after an up-and-down begin to his big-league profession.

For most of his outing, Wrobleski was defending a 3-1 lead the Dodgers took in the underside of the fifth, when Max Muncy hit a leadoff triple, Hyeseong Kim adopted an Andy Pages sacrifice fly with a double, and slumping rookie catcher Dalton Rushing plated the sport’s go-ahead runs on a two-run single.

But with the Dodgers’ bullpen worn skinny from back-to-back bullpen video games the earlier two nights, Wrobleski went back to the mound in the ninth to attempt to end issues off. He couldn’t, giving up two runs after a Max Muncy throwing error put him in a jam.

However, Smith made sure it didn’t matter, coming off the bench in the underside of the ninth to whack a walk-off home run just over the right-field wall.

Will Smith runs to first after hitting a walk-off home run in the ninth inning for the Dodgers against the Padres on Wednesday evening.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Despite the late dramatics, it was Sheehan’s return that had the largest future implications on the Dodgers’ season, giving their shorthanded rotation a badly needed, and extremely intriguing, new option for the second half of the season.

While discussing Sheehan before the sport, supervisor Dave Roberts stated the Dodgers all the time “liked his makeup, his toughness, his ability to repeat his delivery, the swing-and-miss stuff, the preparation.”

But the best way he navigated his Tommy John restoration — returning to motion 13 months after present process the process final May — had added one other factor of optimism among workforce officers.

Roberts famous how Sheehan had seemingly elevated his bodily energy during his rehab, with the once lanky 6-foot-5 pitcher now possessing noticeably more mass. He also defined how Sheehan has “had a chance to watch a lot of baseball, learn and then now apply it.”

“I think that’s going to make him a better major league pitcher,” Roberts stated.

One begin back, indicators of such growth have been already turning into clear.