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Dodgers starting pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto throws to the plate during the first inning of their game against the Chicago White Sox on Tuesday, July 1, 2025, at Dodger Stadium. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

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LOS ANGELES — It’s possible the Colorado Rockies are doing everyone a disservice by distracting us from just how bad the Chicago White Sox still are.

The Dodgers continued their tour of baseball’s lower latitudes with an easy 6-1 victory over the White Sox on Tuesday night, featuring seven strong innings from Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani’s 30th home run of the season.

Whatever issues the Dodgers might have – pitcher injuries, deep slumps by Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, occasional defensive lapses – they pale in comparison to those of their recent opponents.

The Dodgers have won eight of their past 10 games while playing three last-place teams (the Washington Nationals, Rockies and White Sox) plus the Kansas City Royals, prevented from being a last-place team by the presence of the White Sox in their division.

Their run through the lesser lights of MLB has allowed the Dodgers to recapture the best record in baseball (54-32) – moving ahead of the Detroit Tigers, who were rained out Tuesday – and pull away in the NL West. When they lost to the San Diego Padres 10 games ago, the Dodgers’ lead in the NL West was 3½ games. After Tuesday’s win against the White Sox, the Dodgers lead the Padres by eight games and the San Francisco Giants by nine.

“I still think that there’s more in three as far as how we’re playing in totality,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “Certainly on the pitching side, I think we’re really pitching well. The bullpen has been great, really stabilized. We’re getting a lot of contributions from guys in the middle to the bottom of the order, which is huge. We’re getting timely hits. And obviously that gauntlet of going through 26 games of some really good opponents record-wise, getting through that, not letting down, staying on the gas I think that’s good and finish strong going into the (All-Star) break.”

Before this stretch, the Dodgers went 17-12 during a 29-game run against teams with winning records – showing their belief in equal opportunity.

“We haven’t been at full strength all year – a lot of teams can say the same thing. But to our credit, no one has made any excuses about that,” Roberts said. “Guys have taken advantage of opportunities. I still believe our best baseball is ahead of us. I expected us to go through that gauntlet and get on a heater. That’s kind of what’s happening, all along not really playing our best baseball, in my opinion.”

They wasted no time declaring their supremacy Tuesday, scoring four times in the first inning. All of the damage was done after White Sox starter Shane Smith retired the first two batters. But he walked Will Smith and Max Muncy back-to-back and gave up three consecutive hits – an RBI single by Teoscar Hernandez, an RBI double by Andy Pages and a two-run single by Michael Conforto.

“I think it’s just a little bit of what the guys have been doing all year, you know?” Conforto said of the two-out damage. “It doesn’t necessarily matter what the situation is, they’re always going to be tough outs out there and be stubborn to their plan. It’s tough to get those guys to chase and it makes it tough on the pitcher and the defense. So just kind of a lot of what we’ve been doing well over the past couple of weeks, we just did that again today.”

That allowed Yamamoto to cruise through the White Sox lineup in comfort.

In his previous start, Yamamoto relied heavily on his curveball, throwing it more often than his four-seam fastball in five one-hit innings at Coors Field (a start cut short by rain).

Against the White Sox, Yamamoto used his fastball much more extensively, setting up a splitter that got six of his 10 swings-and-misses. He struck out eight in his seven innings and retired the last 10 batters he faced after giving up a two-out, RBI double to Lenyn Sosa – the last of the three hits Yamamoto allowed.

“I think he just kind of recalibrated the strike-throwing, the split was really good today, the fastball, obviously, the command was really good,” Roberts said. “He was really good tonight.”

The Dodgers added single runs in the third inning on Pages’ RBI single and the fourth on Ohtani’s home run, both coming with two outs in the inning.

This is Ohtani’s fifth consecutive 30-homer season and the third time he has reached the mark before the All-Star break. He had 33 at the break in 2021 (and finished with 46) and 32 in 2023 (on his way to 44).

He had 29 at the All-Star break last year when he finished with a career-high 54. He is the fastest Dodger ever to reach 30 home runs in a season (86 games).


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