OHTANI HOMERS, DODGERS END SKID

They shake off prior night’s collapse for 5-2 victory over Orioles, avoiding series sweep.

- JACK HARRIS

SHOHEI OHTANI hit a leadoff homer and went yard in his next at-bat.

The day started with a couple of Shohei Ohtani home runs. It continued with a strong 5⅔-inning start from Clayton Kershaw. And it ended with the Dodgers in a celebratory postgame line, trading victorious high-fives near the mound.

After five consecutive losses, several weeks of mounting frustration, and the most painful collapse imaginable the night before, the Dodgers took a crucial first step toward righting their sinking ship on Sunday.

They beat the Baltimore Orioles 5-2, finally finding a way to hold on to a late-game lead.

They ended an otherwise disastrous road trip on a sorely needed high note, avoiding a second consecutive series sweep to a last-place opponent.

“It's not a surprise how we responded,” manager Dave Roberts said. “There was no panic. There was just preparation. We were up, looking forward to playing a ball game, to win a game.”

Sunday was the kind of day the Dodgers (79-64) were searching for amid their recent struggles, which reached a new low when their no-hitter turned walk-off nightmare on Saturday trimmed their division lead down to just one game.

That game, in which Yoshinobu Yamamoto had a no-hitter broken up with two outs in the ninth before the Orioles (66-77) rallied for a stunning walk-off win, was the kind of loss that threatened to throw the Dodgers into an all-out nose-dive; an unthinkable defeat that, on top of their previously mounting frustrations, turned Sunday into yet another gut-check for the longslumping club (which entered Sunday 10 games under .500 since July 4).

"It was a tough loss yesterday," shortstop Mookie Betts said. "Especially what Yoshi did, everybody was so excited and happy for him. And to lose, that was tough. So it was pretty down." Sunday morning, however, Betts said the mood in clubhouse had rethe bounded.