Shohei Ohtani is off to a good start in Year 2 with the Dodgers. (Photo by Ronald Martinez/Getty Images)
(Ronald Martinez via Getty Images)
Shohei Ohtani and the Los Angeles Dodgers are not a serious team. In a good way.
The Dodgers continued their undefeated run to start the season with a walk-off homer from Shohei Ohtani, on the reigning MVP’s bobblehead night, to erase a 5-0 deficit against the Atlanta Braves. In a season that has already seen more than a few comeback wins, this was the most absurd.
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The Dodgers are now 8-0. While the Braves are 0-7.
It was Ohtani’s third homer of the season so far. After Wednesday, he is hitting .333/.459/.667 in eight games with two stolen bases, while still rehabbing his way back to the pitcher’s mound.
Los Angeles is now the first defending World Series champ to win its first eight games of the season, breaking a tie with the 1933 New York Yankees for the best start ever.
The win also continues an absolutely ridiculous run for the NL West. The San Diego Padres are the only other undefeated teatm left in MLB, and the San Francisco Giants and Arizona Diamondbacks have both lost fewer than two games. Combined, the quartet atop the West is 24-3, with the poor Colorado Rockies already in the basement at 1-4.
Thousands of fans lined up early for the Ohtani bobblehead earlier Wednesday, despite assurances from the Dodgers they had manufactured enough for everybody. After two different bobbleheads created similar crowds last year, this one featured Ohtani accepting his third MVP award and first in the NL.
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It looked like that crowd would be disappointed. Blake Snell, who joined the Dodgers on a five-year, $182 million deal last offseason, had his second straight rocky start after yielding two earned runs, five hits and four walks in five innings in the Dodgers’ home opener. The Dodgers came back in that one as well, with another homer from Ohtani.
This one bit Snell a little more. By the end of the fourth inning, the Dodgers were down 5-0 after he allowed five unearned runs with five hits and four walks. Shaky command has been a recurring theme for the Dodgers rotation this season, with Roki Sasaki the other pitcher having issues, and it left Los Angeles with its biggest deficit of the season.
It was also their season high in runs allowed in nine-inning games.
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Then the two units that have been absolutely working for the Dodgers this season took over. A bullpen unit of Ben Casparius, Kirby Yates and Jack Dreyer combined for five scoreless innings with three hits allowed and six strikeouts, while the lineup started chipping away at the Atlanta pitching staff.
Home runs by Tommy Edman and Michael Conforto brought the Dodgers within two runs, then Max Muncy tied the game in the eighth inning with an RBI double. Muncy was 0-3 before that at-bat while trying out the new torpedo bats, but went his usual lumber and posted his biggest hit of the season.
And then, Ohtani. It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone in baseball after the Dodgers’ title in 2024 and arguably MLB’s best offseason during the winter, but this team is looking like an absolute nightmare to outrace over the course of nine innings.
