BALTIMORE — Shohei Ohtani tossed 3⅔ shutout innings Friday night in a surprise start for the Los Angeles Dodgers against Baltimore after teammate Tyler Glasnow was scratched due to back stiffness.

Ohtani threw 70 pitches, 44 for strikes, and reached 101.5 mph with his four-seam fastball against Orioles third baseman Emmanuel Rivera. The 31-year-old right-hander allowed three hits and a walk while striking out five, but the slumping Dodgers lost 2-1 in the opener of a three-game series.

Los Angeles dropped its fourth straight but remained two games up in the NL West over skidding San Diego.

Left-hander Anthony Banda replaced Ohtani in the fourth with Ryan Mountcastle at third base. Banda walked Dylan Beavers but then retired Samuel Basallo on a grounder to end the inning.

Dodgers teammate Freddie Freeman appreciated Ohtani’s effort on short notice.

“You could see he’s exhausted after an inning or two,” Freeman said. “It’s muggy. He’s still not healthy. He’s still sick. He gave it his all. It’s amazing what he’s doing. He’s throwing 100, 101 mph. We will be saying this every year about Shohei Ohtani until he retires. He’s a unicorn. He pitched great. Everything he had in that fourth inning to get out of it.”

Ohtani was scratched from his previous turn Wednesday due to a cough, and manager Dave Roberts projected the five-time All-Star would pitch fewer than five innings Friday.

“I was able to get my high-intensity catch play in yesterday so I felt pretty good chiming in today,” Ohtani said through an interpreter. “I was contacted around 2 o’clock and was told if I could potentially start today.

“I actually felt really good coming into the game today. Probably the worst I felt was game one and game two in Pittsburgh. I started to feel a lot better my last day in Pittsburgh.”

The two-way superstar threw five innings of two-hit ball his last time out on Aug. 27, allowing one run with nine strikeouts for his first win of the season in a 5-1 decision over the Cincinnati Reds.

Roberts saw Ohtani’s pitch count rising in the fourth and decided to go get him.

“I just felt that the pitch count was high,” Roberts said. “Initially, I was thinking four [innings] and 60 [pitches] for him. He was north of that. Even leading up to the fourth inning there was a lot of stress and a lot of high-velocity pitches. For me, I’m not going to risk him just to get another hitter where we have a guy that’s fresh that I felt needs to be able to get those lefties out. If it was a normal situation where it wasn’t short notice, then I would’ve let him get that hitter. We will have time to push him [later this season].”

Glasnow felt discomfort late Thursday night when the team plane landed. The back issue cropped up when he arrived at the ballpark and the right-hander is day-to-day, Roberts said.

“I think it’s just more of trusting the player and also knowing that he wants to be out there and feeling like we got ahead of it early,” Roberts said. “It’s not something that we got to a point where he’s hurt. It’s back stiffness. We feel like to not take this start will allow him to be able to start hopefully early next week.”

Ohtani batted leadoff Friday as the designated hitter again, and Roberts said the three-time MVP wanted to be a critical piece to ending the club’s slide.

“Shohei, to his credit, wants to pick us up,” Roberts said. “I really admire him for that.”

All-Star catcher Will Smith still has some swelling in his right hand and did not play. Roberts believes Smith will have to play through the bone bruise for the rest of the season.

ARLINGTON, Texas — Houston Astros outfielder Taylor Trammell is facing no discipline from Major League Baseball after umpires confiscated his two-color bat when New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone asked for it to be checked following a double.

Trammell said Friday, a day after the incident in the ninth inning of the Astros’ 8-4 loss to New York, that he had spoken with MLB officials. Trammell said he understood and appreciated their explanation of what happened because of some discoloration on the dark-colored barrel of the bat.

“We see it a lot with some guys who may have a wristband on or something like that, and just got to take it off. So, it’s nothing crazy, didn’t impact the ball or anything like that,” Trammell said before the American League West-leading Astros opened a series in Texas. “It was more so of an aesthetic of the eye, so that was basically the only thing.”

MLB regulations require a two-color bat to be divided into two sections, each of one solid color. That discoloration, while not likely to impact the performance, made it a nonconforming bat.

During the lengthy delay in the ninth inning Thursday night in Houston, both managers talked to plate umpire Adrian Johnson. The umpire then spoke with the replay office in New York before handing the bat to an official who was sitting near home plate.

Boone said Friday that he had asked umpires to check the bat only after it was brought to his attention that something didn’t look right about it.

“Frankly, that was something hard for me to do because I don’t think Taylor was up to anything. I really don’t,” Boone said. “In the moment, I felt like a duty to at least check in for my team. But, you know, I’m frankly satisfied with the ruling, the explanation.”

Trammell, who appeared in five games for the Yankees last season before going to Houston in November, said he wasn’t sure if he would get the bat back from MLB. But he would like to have it.

“I probably would just want it, to have it just because I can have a story to tell my grandkids about it. It’s kind of a cool, funny little story,” he said. “I don’t know if they’ll give it back. They put a sticker on it so it’s authenticated at least. … So, somebody is going to have it.”

Asked about his bats for the series against the playoff-chasing Rangers, Trammell held up the bat he had just used in batting practice.

“I’m making sure like there’s no chipping, there’s a little mark here,” he said, noting a small spot. “We’ve moved on. Like I said, respect for both organizations, and glad how everything kind of turned out.”

ARLINGTON, Texas — Texas shortstop Corey Seager is feeling better after having an appendectomy and still hopeful of playing again this season for the playoff-chasing Rangers, though the two-time World Series MVP is unsure if that will happen.

“I mean, I have to think it’s possible … or it won’t be,” Seager said Friday in his first public comments since the procedure Aug. 28 in Texas, the same day the Rangers left for a six-day road trip.

While Seager is eligible to come off the 10-day injured list Sunday, he said there’s no chance of that.

A little while later, the Rangers placed slugger Adolis García on the 10-day IL with a right quadriceps strain – prior to the opener of a three-game series against AL West-leading Houston. That move was retroactive to Tuesday.

Outfielder Dustin Harris was brought up from Triple-A Round Rock and right-hander Jon Gray (right shoulder nerve irritation) was transferred to the 60-day IL.

Seager has researched athletes who have come back to play after an appendectomy.

“I feel like I got very opposite ends of the spectrum,” he said. “It was either really fast or kind of wasn’t.”

Matt Holliday was with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2011 when he had an appendectomy on April 1, and returned to their lineup as the designated hitter nine days later. Seager said he had also been told of some basketball players returning in three weeks.

“But it’s not rotating and stuff, so I don’t know if that changes it just because of where the incisions are,” Seager said. “So I really don’t know.”

Seager’s appendectomy came a day after he experienced abdominal pain during the Rangers’ previous home game, a 20-3 win in the finale of a three-game series against the Los Angeles Angels on Aug. 27. He hit his 21st homer of the season in that game, after also going deep the previous night.

Seager said he started feeling pain after the series opener against the Angels.

“Then it just kind of progressively got worse,” said Seager, adding doctors told him he was within 48 hours of his appendix rupturing.

“Which is a very different story,” he said.

Texas went into the series against the Astros five games behind the division leaders, and 1 1/2 games out of the final American League wild-card spot. Second baseman Marcus Semien (left foot) and right-hander Nathan Eovaldi (right rotator cuff strain) are among other injured Rangers.