ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the Washington Wizards from 2014 to 2016 and the Washington Nationals from 2016 to 2018 for The Washington Post before covering the Los Angeles Dodgers and MLB for the Los Angeles Times from 2018 to 2024.
Soon after reporting for spring training, Anthony Santander approached teammate Gunnar Henderson with an idea: a friendly season-long home run contest.
The veteran outfielder saw the sky-is-the-limit potential in Henderson, the reigning American League Rookie of the Year. Santander envisioned years of 40-plus home runs in the shortstop’s future as the Baltimore Orioles‘ cornerstone. But the season is long, he thought. They could use the competition to nudge each other through the grind.
Henderson accepted. On cue, Henderson banged 18 home runs through May. Santander had half as many.
“I started a little slow,” Santander said in Spanish this week. “He started, ‘Boom!’ So in June I told him, ‘Kid, I need you to keep going, because I’m going to hit 10 home runs this month.'”
Santander sold himself short. He hit 13 in June, solidifying a timely breakout campaign that has continued through August. Santander on Tuesday cracked his 37th home run of the season, four more than Henderson and tied with Marcell Ozuna for third most in the majors. Only Aaron Judge and Shohei Ohtani have hit more.
Santander and Henderson form one of just two duos in baseball with 30-plus home runs. Judge and Juan Soto is the other.
“Now he’s the one that’s like, ‘Keep going, going,'” Santander said with a laugh. “And that’s how we’re going. We have that good competition going.”
With all the attention the Orioles’ wave of young talent has rightfully garnered, Santander has soared under the radar as an indispensable member of a team seeking its second straight AL East title. The switch-hitter’s 37 home runs are already a career high. His .824 OPS — second on the club to Henderson — would be a career best for a non-shortened season. His 82 RBIs lead the team.
In July, Santander earned his first All-Star Game nod in what is perhaps his final season in Baltimore; the 29-year-old from Venezuela is slated for free agency, and likely a life-changing payday, this winter. It’s a remarkable ascent for a 2016 Rule 5 pick who joined the Orioles with a surgically repaired right shoulder and not a single game above High-A on his résumé.
“It’s been fun to watch Anthony really come into his own these past five years and become a really good major league player in the middle of the order,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said.
Hyde was hired to replace Buck Showalter before the 2019 season, two years after Santander became an Oriole and one year into the organization’s agonizing, down-to-the-studs rebuild. Santander, however, got to share a clubhouse — briefly — with players who were part of the Orioles’ previous playoff core: All-Stars Manny Machado, Adam Jones, J.J. Hardy and Mark Trumbo. That experience guided him through all the losing: the 47-win, rock-bottom season in 2018; the 54-win struggle in 2019; and the 52-win nightmare in 2021.
“I think that’s what kind of helps guide the team to where it’s at today,” said Cedric Mullins, another veteran outfielder who weathered the storm at the turn of the decade. “We’ve been able to understand what it’s like to really go through those types of years. We’ve been able to see what winning teams do and how they go about things on the day to day. We try to incorporate that and a lot of guys have fallen in line with that and we’ve seen the results.”
Sure enough, the results were better in 2022, as the Orioles won 83 games and Santander posted career highs in hits, home runs and RBIs. Last year was Baltimore’s coming-out party: 101 wins and a division title, plus another strong season for Santander.
This year, the Orioles, battling with the New York Yankees for the AL East crown, are among the World Series favorites in a wide-open race. It could be Santander’s final stretch calling Camden Yards home.
Santander said he wants to stay in Baltimore, but the club has not engaged his representatives with extension talks. Santander has his deficiencies — he’s batting .236 with a .304 on-base percentage, the metrics indicate he isn’t a strong defender even though he boasts elite arm strength, and he is a below-average baserunner — but front offices value power highly, and he has plenty of it.
Juan Soto headlines this offseason’s free-agent class. Behind him, Teoscar Hernández, Santander and possibly Cody Bellinger — if he opts out of his current contract — should be the winter’s most sought-after outfielders.
“Obviously, it’s something you think about because it’s something that’s going to be there in the future, but I focus on the moment,” Santander said. “What do I have to do to be able to get there? It’s going well, but there’s still six weeks to go. Anything can happen. The most important thing is to remain healthy.”
Health hasn’t been an issue this season. Santander has started 121 of the Orioles’ 129 games — 102 in right field and 20 as the designated hitter. He was the right fielder Tuesday when his two-run home run gave Baltimore a 2-0 lead in an eventual 9-5 win against the New York Mets at Citi Field.
The blast — his 26th batting right-handed this season — moved him to within three home runs of becoming the eighth switch-hitter ever to hit 40 in a season, and it expanded his lead on Henderson with less than six weeks to go.
“Whichever one of us is ahead, it’s just like, ‘Keep going,'” Henderson said. “Because the one that’s behind is always like, ‘Yup, I’m going to catch him.’ It’s fun to have that guy to compete with. We’re having fun with it.”
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.
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.
ATLANTA — Kyle Farmer just shrugged when asked about being part of a Colorado Rockies team that has the fewest wins through 70 games since the 1899 Cleveland Spiders.
“We don’t care,” Farmer said after Saturday’s 4-1 loss to the Atlanta Braves left Colorado with a 13-57 record.
The Rockies have the fourth-fewest wins by any team through their first 70 decisions in a season in MLB history, and the fewest since the 1899 Spiders won 12 of their first 70 decisions. Colorado (.186 win percentage) is currently on pace to go 30-132 this season.
“I mean, there’s nothing we can do about it,” Farmer said. “It is what it is. We’ve just got to show up tomorrow and play. There’s nothing you can really say about it except that if it happens, it happens.”
The Rockies made more inglorious history by setting a franchise nine-inning record with 19 strikeouts. That’s a lot of futility for one team to absorb in one day.
The 19 strikeouts by Braves pitchers also set an Atlanta record for a nine-inning game. Spencer Strider recorded 13 strikeouts in six innings, followed by relievers Rafael Montero and Dylan Lee, who combined for six more whiffs.
The only bright spot for the Rockies was the encouraging start by rookie right-hander Chase Dollander, a native of Evans, Georgia, who allowed four runs, three earned, in six innings.
The Rockies have 10 fewer wins than the Chicago White Sox, who have the second-worst record in the majors at 23-48.
Dollander said “just having a neutral mindset” is the key to remaining positive through a season already filled with low points for the team.
“Don’t ride the roller coaster,” Dollander said. “You know, there’s going to be lots of ups and downs in this game. This game is really hard. So it’s just, you know, staying neutral and we just keep going.”
Dollander was the No. 9 overall pick in the 2023 summer draft. Among other top young players on the team are catcher Hunter Goodman, who might return to Atlanta for the All-Star Game on July 15, and outfielders Jordan Beck and Brenton Doyle.
“You know we’re going to have our time,” Dollander said. “I mean, it’s just one of those things that you kind of learn as you go. I’ve been very fortunate to be here for a little bit now, and I can help us going forward.”
The 34-year-old Farmer said one of his jobs is to help the younger players endure the losses.
“For sure, keeping guys accountable and teaching them the right way to do stuff,” said Farmer, the first baseman whose double off Strider was one of only four hits for the Rockies.
“Keeping their heads up and they’ve got to show up each day and play, no matter our record. It’s your job and you worked your whole life to get here. Enjoy it. This is a great opportunity for a young guy to show what they can do.”