Robbie Ray throws 5 no-hit innings in return after Tommy John surgery, leads Giants past Dodgers

Robbie Ray returned to the mound Wednesday for the first time in more than a year.

Although his strange no-hitter bid came up short, Ray successfully led the San Francisco Giants to an 8-3 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers. Ray threw five innings with eight strikeouts, and despite the fact that he allowed a run in a wild first inning, he didn’t give up a single hit in the win.

Ray’s five-inning stretch was the longest no-hit bid by a Giants starter in his debut with the team since 1960, via MLB.com Sarah Langs.

Ray joined the Giants this past offseason in a trade from the Seattle Mariners, who dealt the 2021 Cy Young winner after he underwent Tommy John surgery in May 2023. He has been recovering ever since, though the 32-year-old started his rehab stint in early June.

He looked a bit rusty on the mound in the first inning. Ray threw more than 30 pitches in the inning as he hit two batters, walked two others and threw a pair of wild pitches — one of which allowed Dodgers catcher Will Smith to score.

Once he got settled in, though, Ray was back to his old self. He cruised through the next four innings, facing the minimum 12 batters in that stretch and keeping the Dodgers without a hit. By that point, after 86 pitches, the Giants opted to pull Ray from the game.

The Dodgers finally broke up the no-hitter in the seventh inning when Chris Taylor hit a double — though he left the game after he injured his left groin while running to second base. The Giants made it out of that inning unscathed and then put up six runs in the eighth inning off RBI from Mike Yastrzemski, Patrick Bailey, Jorge Soler, Heliot Ramos and Matt Chapman to break the game open.

Lamonte Wade Jr. barely made it past the tag at home to score the sixth run of the inning on Chapman's single.

That had San Francisco up 8-1. While the Dodgers scored twice more the rest of the way, it was too late. The Giants closed out the five-run win, which marked just their second in the past six games. The Giants now hold a 49-54 record.

The loss dropped the Dodgers to 61-42 on the season, and it snapped a five-game winning streak including their sweep of the Boston Red Sox last weekend. Even with the loss, the Dodgers hold a commanding lead in the NL West.