LOS ANGELES -- When looking to avoid a sweep, handing the ball to a two-time Cy Young Award winner is usually a good strategy.
After dropping the first two games of their 10-game, 10-day road trip to the Dodgers, the Rangers turned to veteran righty Jacob deGrom for Sunday’s matinee. And as he’s done his whole career against L.A., deGrom dominated, leading the Rangers to a 5-2 victory.
In 15 career starts (including the postseason) against the Dodgers, the 37-year-old now has a 2.35 ERA with 105 strikeouts and a 0.96 WHIP in 95 2/3 innings.
“He’s done this for a long time,” said manager Skip Schumaker. “I don’t think it matters what lineup he’s going against, he believes in his stuff. First pitch of the game, [Shohei] Ohtani home run. Shows you who he is, they didn’t get much after that.
“I just felt really good about him. Obviously, I think you feel really good about him when it’s Jacob deGrom Day, and it’s exactly what we needed because of where the bullpen was. We felt good about that, too. But we really needed the six innings at least, and he did that for us. It was an amazing outing.”
After that first-pitch home run to Ohtani, deGrom shut down the best offense in baseball for six superb innings, striking out nine and allowing four hits -- all singles after Ohtani’s home run. He walked three, including an intentional free pass to Ohtani that his skipper called after deGrom fell behind 1-0.
Schumaker had a feeling his starter wouldn’t be thrilled about the intentional pass when he called for it.
“Jacob deGrom, I don’t think he’s scared of anybody,” Schumaker said. “He probably wasn’t happy that I even intentionally walked [Ohtani] later in the game. He probably was wanting to go after him, which I get. He’s a competitor."
Schumaker was spot on: deGrom did not, in fact, love the call to put Ohtani on.
“I wanted to face him there, honestly,” deGrom said. “He got me on the first at-bat. I walked him on the second at-bat, and then once I fell behind, I was like, ‘Please don’t walk him. Please don’t walk him.’ And then they did. That’s the goal, you want to compete against the best. He’s a great hitter. Like I said, he got me in the first at-bat and I wanted a chance to try to go out there and redeem myself.”
deGrom topped out at 98.6 mph on his fastball and generated a season-high 15 whiffs. Five of his punchouts came on his slider. He said he was pleased with his pitch mix -- he threw all five of his pitches for strikes.
The win, deGrom’s first of 2026, also continued his career-long stretch of dominance in day games. During the Divisional Era (since 1969), deGrom’s 2.09 ERA in day games is best among pitchers with at least 300 innings -- ahead of Aroldis Chapman (2.40) and Clayton Kershaw (2.41) -- and his 0.99 WHIP is only second to Pedro Martínez (0.97).
"Jacob, when he's right, he's one of the best in baseball," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.
Schumaker had also spoken all series about the importance of getting length from his starters as the Rangers embarked on a 10-day road trip with no off-days. Jack Leiter only lasted 3 2/3 innings on Saturday, so deGrom’s six-inning gem was a big boost for Texas’ pitching staff.
“Wanted to go out there and go as long as I could,” deGrom said. “After the fifth, I asked if I was good to go, they said yeah. So I was able to get through the sixth and hand it over to the bullpen, and they did a good job.”
On offense, the Rangers strung together 10 hits and 10 walks, three of which came courtesy of catcher Danny Jansen. Jansen also went 4-for-5 on ABS challenges, getting three ball calls overturned for strikeouts.
“Fifteen games in, we’re all adjusting to this thing, and we’ve gone over all the data and are trying to be proactive with it, and reactive,” Schumaker said of ABS. “[Jansen] did it in high leverage, he did it in low leverage. There were some big calls that went our way, so credit to him. He definitely was the player of the game, for sure, in the way he attacked. deGrom had a nice day, I don’t want to say it was just Jansen. But I think that combination, that battery, was super impressive tonight.”