Opposing pitchers don’t get the best of Los Angeles Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani too often. But Pittsburgh Pirates rookie phenom Paul Skenes did just that on three pitches Wednesday night.
Skenes didn’t mess around, either. He piped three straight fastballs inside the strike zone at 101.3 mph, 100.1 mph and 100.8 mph. Ohtani swung at all three pitches, fouling off one of them, but quickly headed back into the dugout after striking out.
Ohtani got his revenge in the top of the third inning, however. On a 3–2 pitch, Ohtani smacked a 100.1-mph fastball from Skenes 415 feet into the Dodgers’ bullpen in center field for a two-run homer.
The two-way superstar swung and missed at the first five Skenes fastballs he saw before launching his 15th home run of the season on the sixth.
Skenes is making his fifth career start Wednesday night at PNC Park. Over his first four outings, Skenes logged a 2–0 record, 2.45 ERA and 12.3 strikeouts per nine innings.
Los Angeles Dodgers slugger Shohei Ohtani is off to quite the start at the plate in 2024.
Ohtani homered twice in the Dodgers' 5–1 win over the Atlanta Braves on Sunday to help complete a sweep of the team which entered the weekend with the best record in baseball. He went 4-for-4 on Sunday and smacked his second homer of the day 464 feet to center field.
Ohtani now is tied for the league lead in homers with 10. In 35 games, he has collected 25 extra-base hits (14 doubles, one triple, 10 homers), the most for a player's first 35 contests with the Dodgers in MLB history (h/t Sarah Langs).
But there's more.
Ohtani's 25 extra-base hits through 35 games also marks his best start to a season. He also has never posted more hits (52), runs (30), total bases (98) or notched a better batting average (.364), on-base percentage (.426) or slugging percentage (.685) through 35 contests in his career.
Ohtani already has 2 unanimous MVPs and is off to his BEST start thru 35 games as a hitter:
XBH: 25, most Hits: 52, most BA: .364, best Runs: 30, most Total bases: 98, most OBP: .426, best SLG: .685, best OPS: 1.111, best https://t.co/TYhs9I00JS
The Dodgers gave Ohtani a 10-year, $700 million contract in free agency last offseason in hopes he'd continue to be the two-way superstar
Ohtani won't pitch until next year, but he already might be worth the Dodgers' investment solely from his offensive production so far.
Ohtani and the Dodgers return to the field Monday to begin a three-game series against the Miami Marlins, who own the second-fewest wins in the National League with a 10–26 record.
Armageddon awaits. Likely for the first time since the 1978 World Series, the New York Yankees will host the Los Angeles Dodgers this weekend with each team claiming first place.
The Yankees have the better offense, the better starting pitching and the better bullpen. The Dodgers have the better defense. Most surprisingly, we all know which team has the better 1-2-3 at the top of the lineup. And it’s not the one with the three Most Valuable Players that even before a box of game balls was cracked open had people scrambling to compare them to the greatest trios ever to top a lineup.
Step aside Mookie Betts, Shohei Ohtani and Freddie Freeman. You have been upstaged by Anthony Volpe, Juan Soto and Aaron Judge.
First, the cold, hard facts:
R
H
HR
RBI
Total Bases
Avg.
SLG
Volpe, Soto, Judge
131
207
44
125
394
.298
Betts, Ohtani, Freeman
119
215
30
105
366
.311
Second, one 100 mph pitch that helps explains why the Yankees’ trio is better: an 0-and-1 cut fastball to Volpe on Sunday from San Francisco Giants closer Camilo Doval, who had held righthanded batters to a .098 average this year. With one on and one out in the ninth, Doval was holding a two-run lead and a 91.7%-win probability. If he dismissed Volpe, Doval could avoid Judge, whom the Giants had retired only four times in 12 tries in his Bay Area homecoming.
Last season Doval could have exploited multiple holes in Volpe’s swing to put him away. Caught up in an analytical-fueled quest to get balls airborne to the pull side, Volpe swung uphill with too much head movement. He could not hit top-rail fastballs (.125), inside fastballs (.195) or breaking pitches (.148).
Doval was about to find this out. He threw a 99.9 mph cutter buried so far inside that it was off the plate. No matter. Volpe 2.0 kept his hands inside the ball and with a short, quick lash carved the pitch into the right-centerfield gap for an RBI triple. He could not do that last year.
With that one swing, another Yankees win was set in motion. Two pitches later, Soto clobbered a high fastball for a go-ahead homer.
A high fastball? Is anybody paying attention? I am astonished how teams keep thinking they can get high fastballs past Soto. This is all you need to know about how to pitch Soto:
Soto by Fastball Height in Zone This Season
Avg.
SLG
HR
Top Third
.459
1.054
7
Middle Third
.447
1.128
8
Bottom Third
.188
.313
0
That’s 15 of his 17 home runs this year resulting from fastballs in the zone belt high or higher. His past 35 home runs off fastballs in the zone have all been middle-up. Soto hasn’t hit a low fastball for a home run in almost a year—since June 14, 2023.
Judge, who is hitting everything, walked, stole second and scored on a Giancarlo Stanton double. In a span of just a dozen pitches, the Yankees scored four times and turned what was about to be a 5–3 loss into a 7–5 win.
Sure, Judge is slugging .658 and Soto has a .417 OBP and Stanton is on pace for 37 homers … all impressive, but … they’ve all been there, done that. All have been better than that in past years. Volpe is the difference maker, slashing .284/.352/.440 a year after going .209/.283/.383. He and Jurickson Profar of the San Diego Padres are the most improved hitters in baseball. Volpe gives the Yankees a leadoff hitter with speed and that kind of OBP for the first time since Derek Jeter in 2009. He creates traffic for Soto and Judge as an elite baserunner (95th percentile).
Volpe’s transformation is extraordinary. Adopting a more traditional, 1980s-type style in the batter’s box, Volpe is embracing groundballs (up from 41% to 52%), hitting the other way (23% to 32%) and putting the ball in play (he has cut his strikeout rate from 28% to 21%)—qualities that are not stressed enough at a time when batting average is the fourth lowest in history (.240).
Try to find another hitter who cut his pull percentage anywhere near what Volpe has done. You won’t. He has cut his pull rate by 21.4% (46.7% to 25.3%). Betts’s 13.8% decline is the next biggest turning away from the pull side.
The Dodgers coming to Yankee Stadium is a clash of titans and the rare renewal of a classic rivalry. The Yankees and Dodgers rank Nos. 1 and 2 in OPS, respectively, and 1 and 3 in home runs, slugging and ERA, respectively.
The Dodgers are 13–24 in the Bronx, including 3–2 in regular season games in 2016 (when the Yankees were in fourth place) and 2013 (when the Dodgers were 29–39). In the postseason, the Yankees own a big edge at home against the Dodgers, 22–10. (The Yankees were a fourth-place team when they met in the 1981 World Series; having qualified for the playoffs in the split season of the strike-marred year by winning the division in the first half.)
The star power is off the charts this weekend. Six of the past 14 MVP Awards have been won by players in this matchup (Ohtani has won two; Judge, Freeman, Betts and Stanton one each). Ohtani is a career .130 hitter at Yankee Stadium, the seventh worst of anyone with 50 plate appearances in the latest version of the yard—but he does have four homers there in just 46 at-bats. Judge has a 1.026 OPS in Yankee Stadium, the highest by any active player in any park with at least 1,500 plate appearances.
Judge has homered in 28% of the games he has played in Yankee Stadium. The Yankees win 79.0% of games when Judge homers in the Bronx (98–26). For some historical perspective, Babe Ruth homered in 27% of his games in the original yard while the Yankees won 77.1% of those games (178–53).
Amid all the MVPs and the monster home run hitters, however, don’t overlook the importance of the 5'9" leadoff hitter for New York looking to make his first All-Star team. Volpe has emerged as an impact player. The Yankees are 27–5 (.844) when Volpe scores a run and 14–14 (.500) when he doesn’t.
Shohei Ohtani, the $700 million man, bought his manager Dave Roberts a new car before Saturday's game, which saw the two-way star break Roberts's record for the most career home runs by a Japanese-born Dodgers player.
Only, it wasn't a car in the sense that Roberts thought, as Ohtani had actually gifted the Dodgers skipper a toy Porsche in an amusing prank before the game against the Atlanta Braves, which resulted in an 11—2 victory for Los Angeles.
After the game, Roberts made an appearance at Ohtani's press conference, showing off the mini Porsche to reporters as he shared a laugh with the Dodgers star.
Dave Roberts came out during Shohei Ohtani’s presser to show the Porsche Ohtani gave him before the game today. pic.twitter.com/8eApE7A4ZC
"He said he wanted a car and I'm glad that he was happy he got a car." 😆 Shohei Ohtani on the toy Porsche he gifted Dave Roberts. pic.twitter.com/towENHmfXD
"He said he wanted a car and I'm glad that he was happy he got a car," Ohtani said.
The Dodgers star, after breaking Hideki Matsui's record for the most career home runs by a Japanese-born major leaguer in April, joked with Roberts, who was born in Naha, Okinawa, Japan, that he was coming for his record next.
True to his word, Ohtani eclipsed Roberts's mark — seven home runs in 302 games with Los Angeles from 2002 to '04 — with a solo home run in the bottom of the third inning.
The homer was part of another productive day for Ohtani, who went 3-for-5 with two RBI and two runs scored — and one perfectly executed prank.
Roberts, asked about the toy car before the game, had this to say.
"He did buy me a car," Roberts said. "I guess I didn't specify what type of car. So I can't say he never gave me anything."
Ohtani ranks second in MLB in OPS through 34 games played in 2024.
