ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the L.A. Rams for ESPN from 2016 to 2018 and the L.A. Angels for MLB.com from 2012 to 2016.
LOS ANGELES — A.J. Minter, a lefty reliever who has made a living taming the game’s most menacing left-handed sluggers, threw a 94 mph fastball right down the middle to Shohei Ohtani in Sunday’s eighth inning and paid a heavy price. What followed was one of the most prodigious home runs of Ohtani’s career — a 111 mph, 464-foot drive into the deepest portion of center field at Dodger Stadium.
It was Ohtani’s second homer of the afternoon, third in a stretch of two games and 10th this season, tying him with Marcell Ozuna, Gunnar Henderson and former teammate Mike Trout for the major-league lead. It was also the final blow in a 5-1 victory that gave the Dodgers a convincing three-game sweep over the Atlanta Braves this weekend.
“Slug is part of my game,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton.
Is it ever.
Ohtani’s latest homer was the third-longest at Dodger Stadium in the Statcast era, which began in 2015. Only Giancarlo Stanton (475 feet in 2015) and Fernando Tatis Jr. (467 feet in 2021) have gone further. It was also the third-longest of his career, trailing two others from Angel Stadium — a 493-foot homer in June 2023 and a 470-foot homer in June 2021.
Ohtani’s slash line — in his first year on a new team, with the expectations of a massive contract and in the wake of a betting scandal surrounding his now-former interpreter — is up to .364/.426/.685, giving him a major league-leading 1.111 OPS. Included in that is 25 extra-base hits, tied for the third-most by a player through his firsts 35 games with a team since 1900, according to research by ESPN Stats & Information.
“I just feel like we’re overall playing really well, so that’s really helping me have quality at-bats,” Ohtani said when asked what has clicked for him offensively in recent days.
The Dodgers went 7-2 in a three-city road trip against the Washington Nationals, Toronto Blue Jays and Arizona Diamondbacks, then came home to host the Braves (a team that held the best record in the major leagues) and outscored them by 14 runs in three games. The Dodgers have pitched to a 1.82 ERA and have hit to an .884 OPS during that 12-game stretch, both tops in the majors.
Ohtani, of course, has played a major role, with 17 hits, including five homers, in 48 at-bats. Twelve of those hits have been up the middle or to the opposite field, a clear sign of how good he feels offensively.
His latest home run was the exclamation point.
“People don’t hit the ball out there — whether you’re right-handed or left-handed, day game, night game,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “The wind actually was kinda pushing it from left to right, so he really got into that one.”
George Springer had a career-high seven RBIs, including his ninth grand slam, and the Toronto Blue Jays celebrated Canada Day by beating the Yankees 12-5 on Tuesday and closing within one game of American League East-leading New York.
The seven RBIs are tied for the second most by any Blue Jays player in a home game, behind Edwin Encarnación (nine RBIs in 2015), according to ESPN Research.
Andrés Giménez had a go-ahead, three-run homer for the Blue Jays, who overcame a 2-0 deficit against Max Fried. After the Yankees tied the score 4-4 in the seventh, Toronto broke open the game in the bottom half against a reeling Yankees bullpen.
Springer went 3-for-4, starting the comeback with a solo homer in the fourth against Fried and boosting the lead to 9-5 with the slam off Luke Weaver after Ernie Clement‘s go-ahead single off shortstop Anthony Volpe‘s glove. Springer has 13 homers this season.
Toronto won the first two games of the four-game series and closed within one game of the Yankees for the first time since before play on April 20.
New York went 2-for-17 with runners in scoring position, dropping to 3-for-24 in the series, while the Blue Jays were 5-for-7. After going 13-14 in June, the Yankees fell to 10-14 against AL East rivals.
DENVER — Houston Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez has experienced a setback in his recovery from a broken right hand and will see a specialist.
Astros general manager Dana Brown said Alvarez felt pain when he arrived Tuesday at the team’s spring training complex in West Palm Beach, Florida, where he had a workout a day earlier. Alvarez also took batting practice Saturday at Daikin Park.
He will be shut down until he’s evaluated by the specialist.
“It’s a tough time going through this with Yordan, but I know that he’s still feeling pain and the soreness in his hand,” Brown said before Tuesday night’s series opener at Colorado, which the Astros won 6-5. “We’re not going to try to push it or force him through anything. We’re just going to allow him to heal and get a little bit more answers as to what steps we take next.”
Alvarez has been sidelined for nearly two months. The injury was initially diagnosed as a muscle strain, but when Alvarez felt pain again while hitting in late May, imaging revealed a small fracture.
The 28-year-old outfielder, who has hit 31 homers or more in each of the past four seasons, had been eyeing a return as soon as this weekend at the Los Angeles Dodgers. Now it’s uncertain when he’ll play.
“We felt like he was close because he had felt so good of late,” Brown said, “but this is certainly news that we didn’t want.”
Also Tuesday, the Astros officially placed shortstop Jeremy Peña on the 10-day injured list with a fractured rib and recalled infielder Shay Whitcomb from Triple-A Sugar Land.
Shohei Ohtani reached 30 homers for the fifth straight season, hitting a fourth-inning drive after fouling a pitch off the plate umpire, and the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Chicago White Sox 6-1 on Tuesday night.
Ohtani fouled the ball off Alan Porter’s right knee in the fourth. Ohtani checked on the umpire and stood by watching until Parker got up under his own power. The three-time MVP then hit a 408-foot shot to center, snapping an 0-for-6 skid and extending the lead to 6-1. He tied Cody Bellinger in 2019 for most home runs before the All-Star break in Dodgers history; Bellinger won National League MVP that year.
Ohtani joined Seattle‘s Cal Raleigh (33) and Aaron Judge of the Yankees (30) as players with at least 30 homers by the All-Star break; it marks the fifth season that three players have reached the 30-homer threshold before the break (2019, 1998, 1994, 1969).
As for Ohtani, this is his third season hitting at least 30 home runs before the break, tying Ken Griffey Jr. for third most in MLB history (Judge and Mark McGwire each did so for four seasons).
During the seventh-inning stretch, Ohtani walked over and checked on Porter again before leading off.
Los Angeles scored its most runs this season in support of Yoshinobu Yamamoto (8-6), staking the Japanese right-hander to a 4-0 lead in the first inning.
The Dodgers won for the 13th time in 16 games and opened a season-high, eight-game NL West lead. They are 16-5 (.762 win percentage) since June 8, the best record in MLB during that span.
Every run Tuesday night was scored with two outs.
Yamamoto allowed one run and three hits in seven innings, struck out eight and walked one.