There is always baseball happening — almost too much baseball for one person to handle themselves.
That’s why we’re here to help, though, by sifting through the previous days’ games, and figuring out what you missed, but shouldn’t have. Here are all the best moments from last night in Major League Baseball:
Ohtani hits another leadoff shot
Shohei Ohtani, the 2024 NL MVP, has made headlines recently for his return to facing live batters on the mound, but let’s not allow the excitement surrounding his return to the mound overshadow his bat. For the second game in a row, Ohtani led things off for the Dodgers with a homer. Unlike on Sunday, though, when Los Angeles lost to the Mets, the Dodgers kept on scoring after Ohtani’s shot, and took down the Guardians 7-2.
For Ohtani, that dinger was more than just a way to kick off the scoring, but it also gave him the MLB lead. Aaron Judge and Kyle Schwarber both have 18 long balls a piece, and Cal Raleigh isn’t far behind with 17 blasts, but Ohtani now sits alone at 19.
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It helped the Dodgers that the offense put up that many runs, yes — and did so as a unit, as each of those seven runs were driven in by a different player, including a home run from catcher Will Smith in the top of the ninth inning — but credit also goes to starting pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto for another quality outing, too. He allowed just two runs over six innings while striking out seven, all of which actually increased his ERA to 1.97. That should tell you something about the season he’s been having to this point.
Maybe Ohtani pulled a Neto
Ohtani might have consecutive games with a leadoff homer, but Zach Neto has now pulled it off four times in May. The latest came on Monday against the Yankees, with Neto taking Ryan Yarbrough to deep center on just his fifth pitch of the game.
Neto has nine homers on the season, six of them in May, and somehow nearly half of them have been to leadoff the game. While his season got started in mid-April due to recovery from offseason shoulder surgery, it’s pretty safe to say that said shoulder is feeling good: Neto is at .283/.324/.551, and he’s already been worth two wins above replacement on the year.
The end result of this leadoff homer wasn’t as good for the other Los Angeles team, however, as Neto going yard ended up being the lone offense of the night for the Halos, who dropped the series opener to New York 5-1.
Padres tie it up, walk it off
The Padres had a rough go of things for a bit there in the middle of May, as they were swept by both the Mariners and Blue Jays, with the last of those defeats being a particularly painful loss in which they went ahead twice in extra innings but couldn’t put Toronto away. They took two of three from the Braves over the weekend, however, and started their series against the Marlins off with a walk-off win.
Manny Machado tied things up 3-3 in the eighth with a solo homer, which is exciting, yes, but pretty run-of-the-mill as far as these things go. The play worth paying attention to was much less common, and much funnier. Unless you happen to be a Marlins fan, anyway. There are probably some different vibes emanating from a walk-off wild pitch than that.
Is it still a walk-off when you have to run as hard as you can to beat the throw? The truth is that Tyler Wade could have taken a bit longer to get home on that wild pitch, since pitcher Cade Gibson never did pull in the throw to the plate in order to make a tag on him. You can blame Gibson for both ends of that, since it was designated a wild pitch, but it’s also pretty easy to say that could have been a passed ball, instead, since Liam Hicks — who had pinch-hit for starting catcher Nick Fortes earlier than took over behind the plate for him — had a reasonable shot at stopping that thing from ping ponging all over the place. Either way: Marlins lose, Padres win.
Tigers win despite Báez ejection
To be fair to Javier Báez here, first off, the umpire in question was Phil Cuzzi, who even the Giants‘ announcers were describing as having “a short fuse” and is “just looking to do it,” where “it” is eject a player. Second, that was a huge drop on that pitch, and a great frame job by backstop Patrick Bailey, but Báez also wasn’t wrong about that being a ball.
A borderline call that, when combined with the sixth pitch in the sequence, suggests that Cuzzi’s zone was running a little low there. As said: credit to Patrick Bailey for the frame job there, that’s why catchers get paid the… well, some amount of dollars.
The Tigers got the last laugh in the end, as they defeated the Giants 3-1 despite the absence of their center fielder.
Now that’s smooth
Sometimes it’s difficult to remember that there was ever any issue with Bobby Witt Jr.’s defense. Like while watching him make this play look easy.
That probably should have been a hit for Elly De La Cruz, especially with his speed. However: Bobby Witt Jr.
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Shohei Ohtani
Bobby Witt Jr.
Detroit Tigers
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