Ohtani and Rushing look back at a costly Dodgers call involving missed ABS chances

The Dodgers left Pittsburgh with a painful outcome Wednesday night, and the moment that stuck most in the dugout involved how they handled an ABS-related call late in the game. According to Yahoo Sports, catcher Dalton Rushing used the one challenge he tried in the bottom of the seventh and did not get the result he was looking for. The sequence created a quick, public reckoning in real time, and it set up a broader conversation afterward inside Los Angeles about whether more ABS opportunities could have been used earlier.

ABS has become a frequent part of late-inning managerial math across MLB, especially when counts and pitch-by-pitch zones matter more than they do in the earlier parts of games. In this case, Rushing’s failed challenge in the seventh became the Dodgers’ immediate example of what they had and did not have available. Yahoo Sports also reported that Shohei Ohtani, a two-way player whose bat and pitching presence can swing leverage late, second-guessed missed ABS chances connected to that game flow.

For a catcher, challenges are not just technical. They are tied to a read on the umpiring crew’s consistency and to the team’s internal confidence in whether an ABS check will overturn the on-field call. Rushing’s one-and-done attempt in the seventh, as described by Yahoo Sports, underscores the high-stakes nature of these reviews. Once a team burns a challenge, the margin for error shrinks dramatically, and the next close pitch becomes harder to reverse.

Ohtani’s involvement in the postgame discussion highlights how quickly these moments can shape a team’s decision-making habits. When a star player pulls you into the specifics of a replayable sequence, it typically reflects more than one missed check. It suggests a lingering question of timing, whether the Dodgers still had usable chances they could have pursued earlier in the at-bat or inning, and whether they were too conservative at a moment when the plate appearance mattered.

The Dodgers’ situation is also a reminder that ABS is not a guarantee of advantage. Even when teams believe a call should land differently on review, the result can remain the same, or the review may expose that a previously held assumption about the strike zone was incorrect. In that respect, what matters moving forward is how Los Angeles calibrates its confidence, not simply how often it pushes buttons for review.

For fans and analysts, the immediate takeaway is to watch how the Dodgers manage ABS decision points in the coming weeks, particularly when they approach late innings with fewer outs and higher leverage. Whether it leads to a more aggressive challenge posture, or to clearer internal rules about when to save review opportunities, this kind of loss can influence not just the next game, but the broader rhythm of postseason-style baseball.