LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Dodgers played one of their sloppiest defensive games of the season and watched it end on a robbed home run by Chicago Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong. But Tuesday night provided them with an unmistakable dose of optimism — Yoshinobu Yamamoto returned after a three-month hiatus, and his stuff looked as sharp as ever.

Before the Dodgers lost 6-3, dropping their division lead to 4½ games, Yamamoto limited the Cubs to only a run in four innings of work, during which he struck out eight batters. His fastball averaged more than 96 mph. His splitter and curveball looked devastating. His command was as sharp as anyone could have reasonably expected, considering he hadn’t pitched in a major league game since suffering a strained rotator cuff June 15.

“It was pretty surprising,” Dodgers catcher Austin Barnes said. “I didn’t know how he was gonna look coming back from this, and he looked better than ever.”

The Dodgers have been ravaged by injuries to their rotation throughout the season and entered Wednesday with only one lock, Jack Flaherty, to start games for them in October.

But then Tyler Glasnow, out since Aug. 11 with what the team has described as elbow tendinitis, threw his second bullpen session, prompting trainers to clear him for a two- to three-inning simulated game Friday.

And then Yamamoto looked a lot like the player the Dodgers imagined when they awarded him a 12-year, $325 million contract this offseason, the largest ever for a starting pitcher.

“I feel much better about the rotation tonight than I did 24 hours ago,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “It’s starting to turn in terms of getting back to the rotation that we had envisioned.”

Yamamoto began his outing with three consecutive strikeouts — of Ian Happ swinging at a curveball in the dirt, of Dansby Swanson swinging through a splitter that darted just below the strike zone and of countryman Seiya Suzuki looking at a full-count fastball that painted the outer edge of the plate.

The Cubs tacked on a run in a second inning after ground balls were mishandled by shortstop Miguel Rojas and first baseman Freddie Freeman. But Yamamoto struck out the side again when the Cubs’ lineup turned over in the top of the third and ended his outing by getting former Dodgers prospect Michael Busch to ground into an inning-ending double play in the fourth.

Yamamoto, speaking through an interpreter, said, “Today’s outing turned out much better than I expected.”

He threw 59 pitches and should be stretched to about 75 pitches when he takes his turn Monday, with three starts left to prepare for the postseason.

“We’ll take this every start going forward — fastball command, both sides of the plate, hits the low dart, the split down below that, stealing a strike with the breaking ball,” Roberts said. “It was really good.”

PHILADELPHIA — Tampa Bay Rays reliever Edwin Uceta was ejected from the team’s 9-4 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies on Tuesday night after hitting Nick Castellanos with a pitch.

Castellanos, for his part, said he knew it was coming.

Uceta gave up a tiebreaking two-run double in the eighth inning to pinch-hitter Cal Stevenson, then proceeded to give up a Buddy Kennedy RBI single, a two-run Trea Turner homer and a Bryce Harper double before Castellanos stepped to the plate.

Uceta’s pitch hit the Phillies slugger on the hip and caused both benches and bullpens to empty and the players to gather on the infield grass.

“I had an overwhelming sense that I was about to get drilled,” Castellanos said. “We all just got a sense of what it was — he was just [ticked] off that he got hit around and his ERA shot through the roof.”

Uceta, who entered the game with a 0.79 ERA, said it was not a purpose pitch and claimed it was a changeup; MLB’s StatCast said it was a 96 mph sinker.

The Phillies, though, didn’t believe him.

“You’re frustrated and you’re going to throw at somebody,” he said. “That’s like my 2-year-old throwing a fit because I took away his dessert before he was finished.”

Harper said what happened has no place in baseball.

“That’s not the game that we play, man,” he said. “It shouldn’t be. Guys throw too hard nowadays. You’re getting mad because a guy hits a homer off you or you blow the lead, walk the guy and come out of the game.

“The situation, the whole thing, just really fired me up, really upset me. Just not something you should accept as Major League Baseball.”

Harper briskly marched toward the mound shouting at the Rays’ pitcher after it happened. He said he stopped himself from a physical altercation because Uceta never turned around to look at him.

“I didn’t want to be a loser and come up behind him,” Harper said. “If he’s going to turn around, then all right, let’s go.”

Harper had three doubles in a game for the third time in his career and the first time since August 2021.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

DETROIT — Rookie Keider Montero pitched Detroit’s first shutout in three seasons and the Tigers beat the Colorado Rockies 11-0 Tuesday night.

Montero (5-6) was making his 14th major league start and became the first Tigers pitcher with nine shutout innings since Spencer Turnbull‘s no-hitter in Seattle on May 18, 2021.

“I was just trying to put every pitch in the strike zone and (catcher Jake Rogers) called a great game,” Montero said through a translator. “Regardless of the score, I was attacking hitters. I knew I had the guys behind me who would make the plays.”

The 24-year-old right-hander needed 96 pitchers while facing the minimum 27 batters. He allowed three singles and struck out five without walking a batter.

“Obviously, this is a huge night for Keider and a huge night for us,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said.

Montero expected to pitch to Dillon Dingler, who has caught him regularly in Triple-A Toledo and Detroit, but a late lineup change meant he was working with Rogers for only the second time this season.

“We ambushed him with a new catcher about 90 minutes before the game, which isn’t the plan, but he and Jake did a great job,” Hinch said.

All of Colorado’s singles — Ryan McMahon in the second, Ezequiel Tovar in the seventh and Aaron Schunk in the eighth — were followed by double plays by the Tigers’ infield.

“He’s just got a really solid four-pitch mix – a lively fastball, two different breaking balls and a good changeup — and he throws a ton of strikes,” Rockies manager Bud Black said. “A game like that is rare in this era — a complete game with a low pitch count.

“But it shows what you can do if you change speeds, move the ball on both sides of the plate and keep it down.”

Parker Meadows hit a solo homer in the first inning, his seventh, and drove in three runs.

Rockies starter Bradley Blalock (1-3) allowed five runs on five hits with five walks in four innings.

“Bradley was the opposite of Montero,” Black said. “He didn’t walk a batter in nine innings and Bradley had five walks and 80-plus pitches in four innings. You’ve got to get the ball in the strike zone.”

Colorado pitchers retired the final 23 batters in Sunday’s 4-1 win in Milwaukee, but that streak ended when Meadows hit Blalock’s second pitch into the right-field stands. It was the first time Meadows and Blalock — high school teammates at Grayson High School in Georgia — had faced each other in the majors.

The Tigers loaded the bases in the second on two walks and an error, and Riley Greene tripled into the right-field corner to make it 4-0. Matt Vierling followed with an RBI single to put Detroit up by five.

Meadows had a two-run single off Anthony Molina in the sixth, making it 7-0, and he scored the eighth run on Vierling’s sacrifice fly. Andy Ibanez had a two-run single later in what became a six-run inning for the Tigers.

The last Tigers pitcher to achieve a “Maddux” — a shutout in fewer than 100 pitches named after Hall of Fame pitcher Greg Maddux — was David Price against Cleveland on June 12, 2015.

According to STATS, Montero is the first MLB rookie to have a 27-batter “Maddux” since it began tracking pitch counts in 1988.