But his fourth outing with the team came against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic shared Cortes's reaction to facing Los Angeles and Freddie Freeman for the first time since surrendering a walk-off grand slam in the World Series.

While the one hit Yu Darvish allowed was a home run, and he also hit a batter and walked one, a one-out single by Miguel Rojas in the sixth inning gave the Dodgers their only baserunner against Cortes. It was the first time in 92 career starts that Cortes made it through five perfect innings.