Last Night in Baseball: Giants Down Dodgers, and Shohei Ohtani's Streak Ended

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Dodgers lose again, Ohtani’s streak over

The Dodgers had a chance to take back sole possession of first place in the NL West on Wednesday, but despite a strong performance on the mound for Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles dropped another game to the Giants. Ohtani went six innings while scattering five hits and no walks, striking out seven; basically the second the bullpen was tapped, the Dodgers ran into trouble.

Jack Dreyer took over for Ohtani in the seventh after the righty threw 91 pitches, and proceeded to give up consecutive singles to right fielder Jung Hoo Lee left fielder Heliot Ramos. No. 9 hitter and catcher Patrick Bailey — one of the most "he’s in there for his defense" backstops around who came into the game batting .145/.217/.145 — then took Dreyer deep for his first home run and first extra-base hit of the season.

That’s a good little bat flip right there from someone without a lot of experience delivering that sort of thing.

The news did not improve for the Dodgers after this. The Giants didn’t score again, but they didn’t have to: Los Angeles couldn’t manage a single run against Tyler Mahle, who was as effective as Ohtani but through seven frames, then relievers Caleb Kilian and Ryan Walker managed what Dreyer could not and kept the shutout going. Ohtani’s on-base streak also met its end here, as he went 0-for-4 with a strikeout and no walks of any kind. Still, it finished tied for second among Dodgers’ players all-time, and tied for 25th in MLB history.

Despite that string of excellence, Ohtani hasn’t actually been at his best throughout the streak. He’s batting a not-very-Ohtani-like .258/.382/.472 this season, which amounts to a still-great 142 OPS+, but his combined OPS+ over the last three seasons is 184; he led the majors in 2023, and the National League in each of the last two years. That’s not the level of performance he’s displayed to this point, and there might even be some concern from the Dodgers over it.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts is considering changing Ohtani’s role, either moving him down in the lineup on days that the two-way star pitches or having him sit rather than hit at all. Los Angeles has the lineup depth for it, and it’s not like Ohtani would stop hitting and pitching. He just might not do it in the same game as often. It’s something to watch out for, at least, especially if getting a little more rest — but not sitting entirely, he would still be pitching — can help him fully get back on track at the plate.

Bonk

Hitting a foul pole at all is already rare enough — it’s a big ballpark, and the pole is only so wide. Hitting the top of the foul pole? Well it’s not impossible, we know that for sure thanks to Pirates’ center fielder Oneil Cruz.

Cruz crushed this ball, too — you would have to in order to get it high enough to clank that high off the pole. He took a 79.7 mph cutter that didn’t cut from Rangers’ reliever Jalen Beeks and sent it back at nearly 117 mph, with its projected distance via Statcast — you know, if there weren’t a giant pole in the way of it — at 432 feet. What a shot.

The Pirates were already ahead 5-4 at this point, but Cruz’s three-run dinger sealed the deal for Pittsburgh. Texas fell to .500 at 12-12, while the Pirates moved into a tie for third place in the NL Central at 14-10.

Well, at least the Phillies were down by a lot

What an unsatisfying way to lose a ballgame. As said, though, the Phillies were already down 7-2 to the Cubs at this point, so at least it wasn’t a situation where Philadelphia was both down its final strike and a swing of the bat away from tying or coming from behind to win. No, the Phillies were already losing by quite a bit with the minimum currency left to do something about it, and this ABS challenge merely put them out of their misery.

Still, brutal. Cubs’ catcher Miguel Amaya challenged the umpire’s call here, with Philadelphia’s own backstop, Rafael Marchan, up at the plate with two outs, a 1-2 count and the Phillies down by five with a runner on. The pitch was a little borderline, sure, but it’s also the kind of pitch that a hitter was supposed to protect against with two strikes even before ABS could ensure that a pitch that kissed the edge of the zone like this would be called correctly. ABS ensured it was a strike, yes, and that ended the game, but Marchan got caught looking at a sweeper he should have tried to foul off to stay alive.

The Phillies have now lost eight in a row, while the Cubs have won that many consecutive matchups. That surge has Chicago half-a-game behind the Reds in the NL Central, while the Phillies now find themselves tied for last in the NL East despite the Mets losing 12 in a row. And that’s because…

The Mets won! But…

Starting with the good news (for New York, anyway): the Mets won, and are no longer riding a 12-game losing streak. It didn’t look like things were trending that way, not when Twins’ center fielder Byron Buxton once again struck via homer, to tie things up in the sixth. 

It also didn’t help when Buxton made an incredible catch in center with the Mets threatening to build a meaningful lead in the eighth over Minnesota.

New York didn’t fall apart this time, however, like happened on far too many occasions as they dropped a dozen Ls in a row. The run first baseman Mark Vientos drove in before Buxton’s diving grab ended up being the last one that the Mets needed, as Luke Weaver stayed in the game after coming on in the eighth, and pitched a scoreless ninth. He even got Buxton — representing the go-ahead run — to strike out to end the game.

Here’s the bad news, though: on the same day that star outfielder Juan Soto was activated from the IL — he was out during the entirety of the losing streak and then some — shortstop Francisco Lindor exited early with a calf injury. He’ll undergo an MRI to determine the extent of the damage and next steps, but New York might go from down one star to down another, all on the same day.

Ahaha what

In less depressing news: 

That’s Mariners’ starter Logan Gilbert catching a ball, sort of. He took a comeback in the jersey, somehow between the buttons, right through the gap in the material — right into his jersey. The slowed down video of this is incredible, so be sure to keep that playing long enough to see it in action.

Gilbert knows the ball is… somewhere. He keeps putting his glove out to catch it before it drops, as he feels it moving around, not understanding that it isn’t stuck somewhere on his top but inside of it. It was ruled a hit for right fielder Carlos Cortes, because what else are you going to do in that situation? Gilbert didn’t catch it; his jersey did.

Naylor walks it off for Mariners

There was more to the Mariners-Athletics game than just a whacky non-catch, however. This was an exciting ballgame. The A’s went up 2-0 in the top of the first, and the Mariners cut that lead in half in the bottom portion of the inning with a sac fly. The Athletics added a run in the top of the third, and so did the Mariners — this time on something a little more exhilarating than a sac fly: a Cal Raleigh homer.

Raleigh has now homered in three-straight games, and his OPS+ for the season is up to 92+ after a horrid start to the season. Over his last 12 games, the M’s catcher is hitting .265/.315/.551 with four of his five dingers and a pair of doubles. That’s not completely back to where he can be, but it’s a hell of a lot closer than .481 OPS he had to that point.

Seattle managed to go up 4-3 in the bottom of the seventh when center fielder Julio Rodriguez grounded out but pushed a run across, anyway. The A’s erased that in the ninth against closer Andres Munoz, however, when 2025 American League Rookie of the Year Nick Kurtz went yard to tie it up.

All that did was create a more dramatic finish for the Mariners. Joel Kuhnel came on in relief for the Athletics, and allowed a leadoff single to third baseman Leo Rivas. The top of the order and shortstop J.P. Crawford then came up and immediately hit into a double play, which made it seem like this wasn’t going to be the Mariners’ inning and extras were all but guaranteed. Again: drama! Raleigh then singled to put a runner back on, and Rodriguez hit a follow-up single to put Raleigh into scoring position. First baseman Josh Naylor was up next, and he delivered.

Naylor laced it into left well over the head of third baseman Max Muncy but also well short of left fielder Tyler Soderstrom, and that allowed Raleigh plenty of time to round second and charge home for the winning run. Ballgame, Mariners.

The A’s remain in first in the AL West at 13-12, and the Mariners are still struggling to put things together, especially on the road where Seattle is just 1-8 and has managed to score just 22 runs. If Raleigh is starting to heat up, though, recovering from that is going to be a whole lot easier than it’s been to this point.

Watch out

Angels’ star Mike Trout can hit baseballs very far and very hard. This one was a little bit of both. Trout lined this pitch from Blue Jays’ lefty Eric Lauer into the Angels’ bullpen, 428 feet away, at 113 mph. It got out of the park in a real hurry. Reliever Ryan Zeferjahn was warming up in the pen, and leaped to try to grab the ball, at least partially as a defensive measure for everyone else in the potential path of that thing.

Trout might have a batting average of just .239 this season, but his on-base percentage is .417 and he’s slugging .557 with eight homers. There is a ton of 2026 left, but his 175 OPS+ is the highest he’s produced since 2022 — it’s been awhile since Trout really looked like Trout, and if that baseball could tell you it would probably say he feels a lot like Trout is supposed to, as well.

The Angels ended up defeating the Blue Jays, 7-3, backed by Trout as well as a fantastic performance from starting pitcher Jose Soriano, who threw five scoreless innings with four strikeouts and no walks, with all seven hits scattered. Soriano’s ERA for the season to this point is just 0.24 — he’s allowed a single run in 37.2 innings of work over six starts.

That’s 11 for Alvarez

Yordan Alvarez went deep for the 11th time this season on Wednesday. That’s the league leader in dingers right there.

It also represented the only runs scored in the entire Astros-Guardians tilt — Alvarez, Houston’s DH, drove in third baseman Carlos Correa for a two-run shot off of Cleveland starter Taylor Bibbee; otherwise, every pitcher for both teams was lights out, with the Guardians’ bullpen combining to allow just two baserunners over three innings, and Houston’s four-pitcher slate twirling a five-hit shutout with 10 strikeouts.

Murakami sets rookie homer mark, among others

White Sox rookie first baseman Munetaka Murakami came over from the NPB this offseason, and his modest contract — two years, $34 million — was an admission that there were concerns across a whole lot of front offices that he wouldn’t be able to handle MLB’s high-velocity pitchers. Despite his undeniable power, elite velocity gave him trouble in NPB, so these fears weren’t unfounded. Murakami, though, has had little issue to start, at least: he bashed his 10th long ball of the year on Wednesday, which also happened to be the fifth game in a row in which he went deep.

That tied a franchise record for the White Sox, joining the likes of Frank Thomas and A.J. Pierzynski, as well as the longest streak for a Japanese-born slugger in MLB, which is co-held by Shohei Ohtani. Five games is also the longest streak by an MLB rookie, and this is the 13th time that’s occurred, per MLB.

One streak that isn’t sitting in a tie, though, is what Murakami has done with teammate Colson Montgomery: Murakami has hit a dinger in five games in a row, Montgomery in four, making the two the first-ever pair of teammates with joint streaks of at least four games.

If Murakami can get to six in a row, that’s when he starts getting into the more rarified air, as just 25 players in MLB history have ever managed to pull that off, and a mere six have made it to seven in a row. The record? That’s eight games, pulled off all of three times.

Two dingers and a 20-game hit streak

Ildemaro Vargas has played in 17 games for the Diamondbacks this season. The infielder has recorded a hit in every single one of ‘em. Even better, he also had a three-game hitting streak to end 2025, so, Vargas now has a 20-game streak across seasons following a big night on Wednesday.

But we can make this little tidbit that much more exciting. Vargas extended his hit streak with a homer last night…

…and then added another for good measure later on.

This all led to Arizona defeating the White Sox in spite of the power shown off by Murakami and Montgomery, 11-7. Streaks all around in this series.