Jack Flaherty proving a reliable force for Dodgers amid rash of pitching injuries

For as bad as the Dodgers’ pitching situation looks here in the final month of the season, there’s a world where it could have been so much worse.

A world where the team failed to execute its buzzer-beater acquisition of Jack Flaherty at the July 30 trade deadline. A world where the Southland-raised right-hander never returned to his hometown team. A world where uncertain post-injury versions of Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow, or an inconsistent post-Tommy John version of Walker Buehler, might have been their only established pitcher in a potential postseason rotation.

A world that, when presented with the hypothetical Sunday morning, manager Dave Roberts had no interest in imagining.

“It,” Roberts said of not having Flaherty, “would not be a good feeling.”

Luckily for Roberts, his team is enjoying a different reality.

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On Sunday, Flaherty further solidified himself as the Dodgers' top current starter with a scoreless 7⅓-inning gem against the Cleveland Guardians. Thanks to some help from Shohei Ohtani, who hit the third deck in right field at Dodger Stadium with his 46th home run of the year, the Dodgers were victorious, too, taking two of three games this weekend from a fellow first-place club with a 4-0 win.

“He’s added stability, consistency,” Roberts said of Flaherty afterward. “And today it was a pitching clinic.”

It’s worth remembering: The Dodgers were mere minutes away from missing on Flaherty six weeks ago.

After deadline-day trade talks with the Chicago White Sox over Garrett Crochet stalled, general manager Brandon Gomes was on the phone with the Detroit Tigers up until the deadline’s final moments, working a package that barely beat the clock before being finalized.

At the time, Flaherty was viewed as perhaps the best player moved at the deadline.

But now — with the Dodgers missing Yamamoto (who is scheduled to return from a strained rotator cuff Tuesday), Glasnow (who over the weekend threw his first bullpen since going on the IL last month with elbow tendinitis), Clayton Kershaw (who continues to battle a bone spur on his big toe) and Gavin Stone (who remains shut down after going on the IL with shoulder inflammation last Friday) — no move, in hindsight, comes close to matching its importance.

“You have to have a guy you feel can take down 24 or 25 hitters; who, when they get stressed once or twice, to trust that they can find a way to navigate it and manage it and keep going,” Roberts said. “When you have guys that you’re afraid of [facing an opposing lineup] the third time through, it puts a toll on the ‘pen. And that’s a tough way to live. … So to have a guy like Jack, it’s a good thing.”

Flaherty illustrated that point Sunday, scattering four hits in a six-strikeout, zero-walk display while working almost three full turns through the Guardians (81-62) and their American League Central-leading lineup.

Even the 103-degree heat, which tied a Dodger Stadium record for first-pitch temperature, didn’t seem to bother him.

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“It was fun,” Flaherty said. “When you get different elements like that, whether it’s super cold or really hot, it’s just another challenge.”

With stellar fastball command and swing-and-miss secondary stuff — including an improved slider he said he worked to refine last week — the 28-year-old tossed his first scoreless outing since his Aug. 3 Dodgers debut.

He also completed seven innings for the first time this year, and worked into the eighth for the first time since 2019.

He had some help behind him, including a leaping catch from third baseman Max Muncy in the fourth inning to turn a double play.

“I didn't know Munce could jump like that,” Flaherty joked.

“Muncy and I have an inside joke because he swears he can dunk a basketball,” Roberts added. “Obviously he’s a bigger guy, but I told him I believe he can dunk a basketball now. He got up there pretty good.”

From there, however, Flaherty largely cruised, lowering his overall ERA on the season to 2.86 and with the Dodgers to a minuscule 2.61. He is now 5-1 in his seven starts with the team.

“He went out there and absolutely dominated,” Muncy said of Flaherty. “Put us in a really good spot.”

Indeed, the Dodgers (86-57) needed such dominance Sunday.

After opening the scoring on Will Smith’s RBI single in the fourth inning, which plated Mookie Betts after a leadoff triple, they stranded the bases loaded to end the inning, then managed only one other run with Flaherty on the mound.

That came courtesy of Ohtani, who moved another step closer to MLB’s first 50-50 season by matching his career high with 46 home runs (and setting a new personal best with 101 RBIs) on a fifth-inning, 450-foot blast off the 1955 World Series banner below the ballpark’s upper-deck Stadium Club — a place no one in the Dodgers dugout had ever seen a ball land.

Read more: With Gavin Stone injured, who's left to carry Dodgers' starting rotation?

“I've been here a while, but Kersh has been here almost double the amount of time I have,” Muncy said, referring to veteran pitcher Clayton Kershaw. “Even he said he's never seen a ball go to that spot in this stadium. That was pretty cool to watch from the dugout.”

The Dodgers added insurance in the eighth, when Muncy hit his 12th home run of the year and Chris Taylor drove an RBI single.

For the most part, though, it was Flaherty who kept the Dodgers in control, continuing to shine as a rare — and desperately needed — bright spot on the mound.

“Knowing [you have] a guy that can be a stopper or put you in a position to win a series,” Roberts said, “that’s obviously a positive thing.”

And something that, if not for Flaherty’s last-second arrival at the deadline, the Dodgers might have been in danger of entering October without.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.