Sources: D-backs, lefty Montgomery agree on deal
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Jeff Passan, ESPN
Left-hander Jordan Montgomery and the Arizona Diamondbacks are in agreement on a one-year, $25 million contract that includes a vesting player option for a second season, sources told ESPN on Tuesday night, bolstering the National League champions’ rotation with the postseason standout from the team that beat them in the World Series.
The deal, which is pending a physical, ends Montgomery’s free agency two days before Opening Day and could include a second-year player option at $20 million if Montgomery makes 10 starts. The option would be for $22.5 million if Montgomery reaches 18 starts and $25 million at 23 starts, sources said.
After entering the winter with hopes of a nine-figure deal, the 31-year-old Montgomery signed for a fraction of that, a coup for a Diamondbacks team whose big offseason acquisition, Eduardo Rodriguez, hit the injured list this week with a lat strain. Montgomery will join a rotation that includes top starters Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly, along with 25-year-old Brandon Pfaadt.
Montgomery’s market figured to be robust after a tremendous season in which he posted a career-best 3.20 ERA over 188⅔ innings, the final 67⅔ of which came with the Texas Rangers following a deadline trade from St. Louis. He continued his excellence in the postseason, tossing seven shutout innings in the wild-card round against Tampa Bay and chasing that with 14 brilliant innings in the American League Championship Series.
Instead, Montgomery’s fortunes mirrored those of three other top-end clients of his agent, Scott Boras. Outfielder/first baseman Cody Bellinger, who sought in excess of $150 million, signed with the Chicago Cubs for $80 million over three years. National League Cy Young winner Blake Snell received a two-year, $62 million deal from San Francisco after targeting $150 million-plus. He joined third baseman Matt Chapman, who wanted nine figures but got three years and $54 million, in San Francisco.
Like all three of them, who received opt-outs after the first year of their deals, Montgomery will control whether he hits free agency in a loaded class of 2024-25. The disappointment of the guarantee is buttressed by joining a Diamondbacks team that heads into 2024 in far better shape than last year as it prepares to take on the much-improved Los Angeles Dodgers and Giants, plus the San Diego Padres.
Montgomery is the latest acquisition in a busy winter for Arizona, whose payroll will balloon to a franchise-record $168 million. In addition to Montgomery and Rodriguez, the Diamondbacks re-signed left fielder Lourdes Gurriel Jr. and outfielders Joc Pederson and Randal Grichuk. They also traded for third baseman Eugenio Suarez.
The best player of them all is Montgomery, who is joining his fourth team since the New York Yankees — with whom he spent the first six seasons of his career — dealt him to St. Louis at the 2022 deadline. A reliable innings-eater who has topped 30 starts in three consecutive seasons, Montgomery has a career 38-34 record with a 3.68 ERA and 705 strikeouts in 755 innings after New York chose him out of the University of South Carolina in the fourth round of the 2014 draft.
Featuring a sinking fastball and a hard curve nicknamed the Death Ball, Montgomery carved through the Houston Astros in the ALCS before allowing four runs in six innings in a Game 2 loss to the Diamondbacks. It was the only game the Rangers dropped en route to their first World Series win, and there was mutual interest in a return.
But Texas’ uncertainty over its local television rights tightened the Rangers’ purse strings, forcing Montgomery to explore other options. Discussions with the Boston Red Sox never advanced past the early stages, nor did talks with the Yankees. The Giants at one point were a suitor but dropped out after signing Snell. Only recently did the Diamondbacks emerge as a possible landing spot.
It’s an ideal landing spot for Montgomery, whose data-driven approach aligns with that of Diamondbacks pitching coach Brent Strom and pitching strategist Dan Haren. And if he can help Arizona in October the same way he did the Rangers last season, the Diamondbacks could once again surprise an NL in which the Dodgers and Atlanta Braves are favorites to win the pennant.
LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani hit two homers in an 11-5 win over the San Francisco Giants on Saturday night, emphatically ending the three-time MVP’s longest homer drought since joining the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Ohtani led off the bottom of the first with his 24th homer, hammering Landen Roupp‘s fourth pitch 419 feet deep into the right-field bleachers with an exit velocity of 110.3 mph.
The slugger had been in a 10-game homer drought since June 2, going 10-for-40 in that stretch with no RBIs, although he still had an eight-game hitting streak during his power outage.
Ohtani led off the sixth with his 25th homer, sending Tristan Beck‘s breaking ball outside the strike zone into the bleachers in right. He also moved one homer behind the Yankees’ Aaron Judge and Seattle’s Cal Raleigh for the overall major league lead.
Dodgers fans brought him home with a standing ovation as Ohtani produced his third multihomer game of the season and the 22nd of his career.
Ohtani reached base four times and scored three runs in his first four at-bats, drawing two walks to go with his two homers.
Ohtani hadn’t played in 10 straight games without hitting a homer since 2023 in the final 10 games of his six-year tenure with the Los Angeles Angels.
Ohtani had slowed down a bit over the past two weeks after he was named the NL Player of the Month for May with a formidable performance, racking up 15 homers and 28 RBIs.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
BOSTON — Hunter Dobbins had quite the week.
First, he said last weekend that he would rather retire than pitch for the Yankees because his father was drafted by New York twice before being traded.
Then, he went out and beat the Yankees.
A few days after his comments about never wanting to pitch for New York, he had to defend his dad’s story about being drafted by the Yankees in response to a New York Post article that cited multiple official databases and the Yankees’ own records that couldn’t confirm Lance Dobbins ever played with the organization.
On Saturday night, Dobbins (4-1) followed up by going six shutout innings in Boston’s 4-3 victory over New York, his second win over the Yankees in less than a week.
“It’s a lot of fun,” he said. “I’m more worried about just the win column, whether it’s against them or anybody. My job is to try and help this team win as many ballgames as we can, and pitch in meaningful playoff baseball games. That’s what I’m more focused on.”
But he realizes what it means to the fan base in this longtime rivalry, with the Red Sox fans heard chanting about the Yankees outside the park before he spoke in an interview room.
“Yeah, I love being able to perform and get those wins for the fans here,” he said. “They deserve it. It’s a great city, passionate fan base, so being able to get those wins — especially twice in one week — means a lot and looking forward to trying to build on that going forward.”
In his victory over New York last Sunday, Dobbins held the Yankees to three runs over five innings, two on a first-inning homer by Aaron Judge.
On Saturday night, Judge went 0-for-3 against him, striking out twice on curveballs.
“It was just kind of scouting,” Dobbins said of his game plan against New York’s slugger after Garrett Crochet struck him out three times in the series opener Friday.
“Crochet has an electric fastball. I can throw it hard, but the shape isn’t quite as elite,” he said. “So we knew we had better weapons to go at him with, so I felt like we did a good job of kind of keeping a balanced attack throughout the order.”
Dobbins struck out five and gave up only two singles Saturday.
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