For a split second on Saturday night at Camden Yards, it looked like Andy Pages might have had a shot at preserving history. Yoshinobu Yamamoto was two outs away from etching his name into the record books, and Jackson Holliday lofted a cutter high into the Baltimore night. As the ball drifted toward the right-center wall, the rookie outfielder gave chase, only to pull up short as the ball disappeared into the seats. To some, it looked like Pages quit on the play. In reality, he never had a chance.
The replay angles made Holliday’s Statcast-projected 362-foot shot appear catchable. But multiple Orioles staffers later confirmed that the ball cleared the wall and landed on a black railing roughly four feet behind the fence and about 18 inches higher. That positioning meant Pages would have needed superhuman reach to even touch it.
“I’d like to think that if there was any chance to make a play on a no-hitter play that you would just exhaust every effort,” manager Dave Roberts said afterward. “But again, I couldn’t tell, and I refuse to go back and look at it.” The reality is clear: short of growing Stretch Armstrong arms mid-sprint, Pages couldn’t have saved Yamamoto.
Dodgers waste Yoshinobu Yamamoto's near no-hitter
Instead, the Dodgers watched Holliday’s homer flip a potential milestone into another gut punch. Yamamoto had been dazzling, mixing elevated fastballs with his trademark splitter and curveball. The Japanese ace struck out Alex Jackson and induced a flyout from Coby Mayo before Holliday’s swing spoiled it all.
“The location wasn’t bad,” Yamamoto said through an interpreter. “His swing, he just put a good swing on it.” His catcher for the night, Ben Rortvedt, agreed: “He didn’t get all of it, but he got enough to poke it out.”
What should have been a crowning moment unraveled into catastrophe. The Dodgers’ bullpen, already reeling from weeks of struggles, failed spectacularly. Blake Treinen let a two-out rally snowball into chaos, hitting Gunnar Henderson, walking two more, and forcing Roberts to summon closer Tanner Scott.
One night after blowing a save, Scott surrendered Emmanuel Rivera’s walk-off single, capping a 4–3 collapse that marked the Dodgers’ fifth straight loss. “I have to get one flipping out, and I didn’t do it,” Treinen admitted. “Yama deserves better than that.”
The bigger picture is no less concerning. Los Angeles has dropped seven of its last eight against last-place clubs, with the bullpen responsible for most of the damage. Scott has now allowed 10 homers this year, and Treinen’s ERA ballooned over four. Roberts hasn’t committed to changes yet, though he admitted it may become necessary.
The whispers have even turned to Shohei Ohtani as a potential postseason reliever, a wild card that underscores how unsettled things have become. “We’re going to do whatever we feel gives us the best chance to win,” Roberts said. “I know Shohei would be open to whatever.”
For Yamamoto, the near-miss was another reminder of how fine the line between triumph and heartbreak can be. He nearly joined Hideo Nomo and Hisashi Iwakuma as the only Japanese-born pitchers with MLB no-hitters, only to watch it slip away on pitch 112.
The Dodgers’ $325 million investment showed exactly why they paid the price. But the bullpen, yet again, reminded everyone why the defending champs suddenly feel so vulnerable. From no-hitter dreams to walk-off nightmares, the Dodgers’ night ended with more questions than answers.
