Had the Dodgers clinched the Nationwide League West title by now, like they normally do, they may have given Shohei Ohtani Friday night time off to bask within the afterglow of Thursday’s six-hit, three-homer, two-double, 10-RBI sport by which he grew to become the constitution member of baseball’s 50-homer, 50-stolen base membership.
However with the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks, the 2 hottest groups in baseball because the All-Star break, inside placing distance heading into the penultimate weekend of the season, Ohtani was within the lineup for the sequence opener towards the last-place Colorado Rockies in Dodger Stadium.
“There are no days off right now,” supervisor Dave Roberts mentioned earlier than the sport. “We have to keep winning baseball games. We’ve still got people on our heels, and I want our guys to continue to stay hungry.”
That’s not an issue for Ohtani, who appears insatiable on the plate. The slugger crushed his NL-leading 52nd homer within the fifth inning, turning a one-run deficit right into a one-run lead, and he stole his 52nd base within the seventh, a part of a three-hit night time that helped push the Dodgers to a 6-4 win in Chavez Ravine.
Teoscar Hernández snapped a 3-3 tie within the sixth along with his thirtieth homer and capped a two-run seventh with an RBI single, because the Dodgers (92-62) lowered their magic quantity to clinch their eleventh division title in 12 years to 5 and maintained leads of 4 video games over the Padres and 6 video games over the Diamondbacks.
Ohtani, who hammered a chest-high, full-count, 92-mph fastball from Rockies left-hander Kyle Freeland 423 ft for his game-turning homer, went 9 for 10 with 4 homers and 12 RBIs in wins over Miami on Thursday and Colorado on Friday night time. It marked the 14th time this season Ohtani hit a homer and stole a base in the identical sport, breaking Rickey Henderson’s MLB file of 13 in 1986.
“I think he’s ramped up his focus, I really do,” Roberts mentioned of Ohtani. “Not to say that anyone is ever trying to make outs, but I think these last couple games, he’s locked in. To be able to cover that ball above the zone, go to the big part of the field, is pretty spectacular. And you look at the last week of homers, they’ve been balls down, so to be able to cover that, it’s just pretty remarkable.”
The Dodgers trailed 2-0 when Andy Pages led off the fifth with a 407-foot homer to left discipline off Freeland. Max Muncy doubled to left-center with one out, and Ohtani despatched a 110-mph missile on what may have been Ball 4 over the center-field wall for a 3-2 Dodgers lead.
“It’s just the ability to generate bat speed, to catch up to that pitch,” Roberts mentioned, when requested how a participant can hit a ball that top, that arduous. “And he didn’t see many pitches up there tonight. There were a lot of changeups down below. I’m sure Freeland was pretty surprised, as well, but [Shohei] is just on one right now.”
Shohei Ohtani receives a standing ovation earlier than his first at-bat Friday towards the Colorado Rockies at Dodger Stadium.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Instances)
Sam Hilliard’s two-out solo homer off Alex Vesia pulled Colorado even 3-3 within the high of the sixth, however Hernández’s homer made it 4-3 within the backside of the sixth, and the Dodgers pushed the result in 6-3 within the seventh.
Ohtani had a hand — or, relatively, two churning legs — within the seventh-inning rally, following Tommy Edman’s stroll and stolen base with an infield single by which he beat Rockies first baseman Michael Toglia to the bag to place runners on first and third with one out.
Ohtani stole second with no throw for his twenty ninth consecutive stolen base with out getting caught. Edman scored on Mookie Betts’ sacrifice fly to middle, Ohtani taking third, and Hernández adopted with an RBI infield single for a 6-3 lead.
“Shohei plays the game hard,” Roberts mentioned. “He steals bases, he runs down the line hard. And if he didn’t come out of the box hard, it would have been two outs and a guy on third. Instead, it’s first and third, which allows Mookie to drive in a run with the sac fly. Those are little things that are a big deal.”
Evan Phillips (seventh) and Blake Treinen (eighth) threw scoreless innings as a part of a bullpen sport, and Michael Kopech gave up a leadoff homer to Toglia within the ninth earlier than retiring three straight batters for his 14th save.
Dodgers proper fielder Mookie Betts makes a catch on the wall throughout the first inning Friday towards the Colorado Rockies.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Instances)
The sport started with a Betts net gem, the Dodgers proper fielder racing to the wall to make a leaping seize of Charlie Blackmon’s first-inning drive to rob the leadoff man of additional bases.
Ohtani, along with his teammates lined up in entrance of the dugout, obtained a prolonged standing ovation from a crowd of 49,073 as he was launched within the backside of the primary, however with chants of “M-V-P!” echoing by the stadium, Ohtani struck out, starting a four-inning stretch by which the Dodgers managed simply two singles off Freeland.
The Rockies scored on Hunter Goodman’s groundout off Joe Kelly within the second inning and Blackmon’s two-out solo homer off Daniel Hudson within the fifth. Brusdar Graterol retired the aspect so as within the third and fourth innings.
Rehab report
Clayton Kershaw threw a 32-pitch bullpen session Friday, simply two days after he threw 80 pitches off a bullpen mound in Miami, however that doesn’t essentially imply the veteran left-hander is on the verge of coming back from a toe harm that has sidelined him since Sept. 1.
“The most important part is getting it healthy, which it’s not yet,” Roberts mentioned. “The other part is keeping his arm moving so you don’t lose the buildup he’s had. The last part is the execution, and it’s hard to have that when you’re not working with the full deck. He’s doing the best he can, and with each passing day, he gets more healthy and feels better.”
Reliever Anthony Banda, who suffered a left-hand fracture when he hit what the crew referred to as a “solid object” in frustration after giving up two runs in a Sept. 9 sport, threw a bullpen session Thursday and is scheduled for one more bullpen exercise this weekend.
“The velocity was good and he’ll throw another one using his slider,” Roberts mentioned of Banda, a left-hander who’s 2-2 with a 3.23 ERA in 46 video games. “He should be ready to go for us the day he’s eligible to come off the injured list.”
