Los Angeles Dodgers Keep MLB's Best Record as Sasaki Surges and Ohtani Rests

The Los Angeles Dodgers spent the last week of July doing what they've done most of the season: winning more than they lose and making it look almost routine, even while their two biggest stars dealt with aches that had the whole fan base refreshing injury reports. A 4-2 stretch against the Mets and Mariners pushed the Dodgers to 69-40, still the best record in baseball, with the NL West lead sitting at a comfortable eleven and a half games. The week's real Los Angeles Dodgers news, though, was split between the good — Roki Sasaki winning twice and looking like the pitcher everyone projected — and the mildly worrying, with Shohei Ohtani sitting out Thursday's finale nursing a sore left knee. Add a trade deadline that now falls on Monday, August 3, and there's plenty to unpack.

The Week That Was for the Los Angeles Dodgers

The week opened at Citi Field, where the Dodgers took the first two from a Mets team that has fallen completely out of the NL East race. Friday's 4-2 win belonged to Sasaki, who threw seven innings of three-hit, one-run ball with nine strikeouts, retiring his final nine batters. Kyle Tucker provided the separation with a two-run homer in the eighth — his first since June 27, ending a drought that had quietly stretched almost a month — and Freddie Freeman went 3-for-4 with a stolen base. Luis Robert and Francisco Alvarez homered for New York, but the win moved Los Angeles to 66-38 and a perfect 4-0 against the Mets on the season.

Saturday brought more of the same, a 4-3 win built on a three-run third inning. Yoshinobu Yamamoto picked up his eleventh victory and Brock Stewart closed it out for his first save of the year as the Mets' late push fell a run short in front of 36,000-plus at Citi Field. Sunday the bats went quiet in an 8-3 loss that snapped the win streak at four and left the season series at 5-1 against a New York club now 18 games under .500, and the Dodgers flew home with a series win and a day off.

Seattle came to Chavez Ravine for three starting Tuesday, and the opener got away late in a 7-6 loss. The Dodgers answered with a tidy 4-2 win Wednesday, then closed out the series 6-2 on Thursday behind Sasaki again. Dalton Rushing crushed a three-run homer, Teoscar Hernandez added a solo shot, Andy Pages had two hits, and Freeman extended his hitting streak to nine games. Two series, two series wins, and a 4-2 week overall — the kind of stretch that doesn't make highlight reels but keeps a division race from ever getting interesting.

Roki Sasaki Is Rounding Into Form

If you're looking for the most encouraging development of the week, it's Sasaki. The 24-year-old bookended the week with wins: the seven-inning, nine-strikeout gem in Queens on Friday, then 5 1/3 innings Thursday against the Mariners, allowing five hits and two earned runs while striking out seven — his best strikeout total in a home start since June 5. His season ERA now sits at 4.64, which doesn't sound like much until you remember where it was earlier this summer and how much of that number was baked in during his rough first half. The second-half version has been a different animal, and with Ohtani's return to the mound still weeks away at minimum, the Dodgers need exactly this from him. Dodgers Digest framed Thursday's start as a chance to build on a couple of strong second-half outings; instead he went ahead and delivered the best home start he's had in nearly two months.

Ohtani's Knee, Will Smith's Neck: The Injury File

Now for the part of this week's Dodgers news cycle that had everyone holding their breath. Ohtani was held out of the lineup Thursday with left knee soreness, which Dave Roberts described as a maintenance situation rather than an emergency. Per Roberts, Ohtani went in for treatment, received an injection in the knee, and was available off the bench; the manager said he expects him back in the lineup Friday. The knee trouble — along with some biceps soreness — traces to the workload of his two-way duties, and the club has already pressed pause on his pitching. The plan, as Roberts has laid it out, prioritizes Ohtani's bat now and targets a return to the mound in mid-to-late August at the earliest, with the real goal being October: if the buildup goes well, he pitches in the playoffs.

The rest of the injury picture:

• Will Smith — the catcher has been out with a neck injury and resumed baseball activities this week, throwing and hitting in his rehab progression. Reports in mid-July suggested he could miss at least another month, so don't pencil him in soon.
• Kike Hernandez — returned to the lineup during the Mariners series, a quiet but useful bit of depth restored.

Standings Check: Los Angeles Dodgers and the NL West

Through Wednesday's games the Dodgers sat at 68-40 with an 11.5-game cushion over the second-place Diamondbacks, and Thursday's win stretched the ledger to 69-40. The Padres have been the hottest team in the division lately — 7-3 over their last ten, including a sweep in Miami — but they're still 13 games back, which means the West is functionally decided barring a collapse of historic proportions. The more interesting race is the one for the best record in baseball: Milwaukee briefly pulled even with Los Angeles at one point midweek before the Giants hung 16 runs on the Brewers, and the two clubs seem destined to spend August and September jockeying for the National League's top seed. Given what home field meant to the Dodgers' title run last October, that's not a trivial subplot.

Deadline Watch: Quiet Shopping for a Loud Roster

The trade deadline lands Monday, August 3, at 6 p.m. ET, and the defending champs are not expected to do anything dramatic. The clearest reported need is catching depth: with Smith still out, Roberts has acknowledged the club could use another option behind the plate, and the front office has been exploring low-cost additions there rather than anything that would dent the farm system. League-wide chatter has mostly cast the Dodgers as the team everyone else is arming up to beat — ESPN literally framed its NL contenders piece around what the Cubs, Braves, Phillies, and Brewers need to do to catch them. When your deadline profile is "everyone else's problem," you're doing something right.

What's Next for the Los Angeles Dodgers

The schedule stays home-friendly:

• Friday–Sunday: Boston Red Sox at Dodger Stadium, opening Friday at 7:10 p.m. PT with Ranger Suarez starting for Boston.
• Monday: Trade deadline day, 3 p.m. PT.

An interleague set with the Red Sox is a decent measuring stick, and Ohtani's expected return to the lineup Friday should settle the nerves his absence rattled.

Zoom out and this was a quintessential week of Los Angeles Dodgers baseball in 2026: two series wins, a young ace trending up, the best record in the sport intact, and just enough injury intrigue to keep everyone honest. If Ohtani's knee cooperates and Sasaki keeps pitching like he did this week, the only real drama left in the regular season is the top-seed chase with Milwaukee — and the Dodgers spent this week making sure it stays that way.