The standing ovation that Jack Flaherty received from a Dodger Stadium crowd of 48,664 when he departed in the sixth inning of Friday night’s 9-5 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates didn’t seem commensurate with his performance in his first home start for his hometown team.
Flaherty, the 28-year-old right-hander who was acquired from the Detroit Tigers with minutes to spare before the July 30 trade deadline, was tagged for four earned runs and nine hits in 5 ⅔ innings and needed just about every one of his 10 strikeouts to navigate heavy traffic on the basepaths throughout his 110-pitch effort.
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But the crowd reaction was as much a welcome-home-and-we’re-glad-you’re here message to Flaherty, a Burbank native who began going to Dodgers games with his mother, Eileen, when he was an infant and pitched Harvard-Westlake High School to the Southern Section Division I championship on this very mound in 2013.
“Yeah, it wasn’t my best start, but it was my first one here, and … I don’t know if I was expecting it, but it was special,” Flaherty said of the ovation. “I enjoyed every second of it. This fan base is as dedicated and as loyal as they come. It’s a lot of fun.”
Flaherty wasn’t nearly as sharp as he was in his Dodgers debut, when he gave up five hits with seven strikeouts and one walk in six scoreless innings of a 10-0 win at Oakland on Aug. 3. He was handed a six-run lead through three innings and nearly made a game of it by giving up a solo homer in the fourth and a three-run shot in the fifth.
But Flaherty kept the Pirates at arm’s length by making several big pitches with runners on base, pitching around Isiah Kiner-Falefa’s leadoff double in the first inning, Michael Taylor’s one-out double in the third, and striking out Yasmani Grandal with a 95-mph fastball with two on to end the fourth.
“One thing I’ve learned so far about Jack is that a situation, a moment, isn’t going to be too big for him,” manager Dave Roberts said. “He has the ability to make pitches when he needs to, and that’s huge.”
Flaherty’s second win in as many starts with the Dodgers helped his new team retain National League West leads of 2 ½ games over San Diego and 3 ½…