Freddie Freeman on Thursday homered twice, while Shohei Ohtani and Andy Pages also went deep as the Los Angeles Dodgers rolled to their 12th National League West title in 13 seasons with an 8-0 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks in Phoenix.
Freeman led off a four-run second inning with a home run and added a two-run shot to cap a four-run fourth inning that concluded the game’s scoring.
Ohtani’s two-run homer in the fourth inning was his 54th this season, giving him 108 in his first two seasons with the Dodgers. He is one short of Alex Rodriguez (Texas Rangers, 2001-2002) for the second-most by a player in his first two seasons with an organization. Babe Ruth had 113 for the New York Yankees in 1920-2021.
Photo: Allan Henry / Imagn Images
Yoshinobu Yamamoto (12-8) gave up four singles in six scoreless innings with seven strikeouts and two walks. He finished the regular season with 201 strikeouts and has allowed just three runs and 11 hits over his past five starts covering 34 innings.
The Diamondbacks (80-79) dropped one game behind the Cincinnati Reds (81-78) and two behind the New York Mets (82-77) in the chase for the third NL wild-card spot.
The Reds, who beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 2-1, hold the tiebreaker over the D-backs and the Mets. The Reds also own the tiebreaker if all three are tied. The Reds are to finish the regular season against the Milwaukee Brewers, while the Mets — who defeated the Chicago Cubs 8-5 — are to close against the Miami Marlins, who lost 1-0 to the Philadelphia Phillies.
Photo: Katie Stratman / Imagn Images
In Cleveland, Ohio, the Detroit Tigers beat the Cleveland Guardians 4-2.
The victory gave the Tigers plenty of momentum going into the final series of the regular season.
“Everybody needs to see a little bit of positivity in the game,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “I think everybody takes a collective breath and say: ‘Here we go.’ We know these games matter the most. Even though they count the same, they don’t feel the same because of where we’re at.”
Photo: AP
The Tigers and Guardians are both 86-73 and tied atop the American League’s Central Division with three games remaining.
The last time the division was remotely close after 159 games was in 2014, when the Tigers had a two-game lead on the Kansas City Royals, who downed the Los Angeles Angels 9-4.
The last time the AL Central was tied at this point was in 2006, when the Tigers and Minnesota Twins had 95-64 records.
“This is a weird sport we play. Anything can happen. We’ve seen it with our own eyes. That’s why you have to play all 162 games,” Riley Greene said.
Even though the Guardians were unable to sweep the Tigers for the second time in less than two weeks, they still got what they wanted by taking two out of three games.
“We’re in first place, aren’t we? That sounds good to me,” Cleveland catcher Austin Hedges said. “We talk about winning series. We did that. If we win every series moving forward, we win the world championship.”
The Guardians — who are 18-6 in September — face the Texas Rangers, who slumped to a 4-0 defeat against the Minnesota Twins.
If Cleveland and Detroit are tied after tomorrow, the Guardians would win the AL Central due to an 8-5 advantage in the season series and host a wild-card series starting on Tuesday.
In Cincinnati, Ohio, Noelvi Marte might have saved the Reds’ playoff hopes when he robbed the Pittsburgh Pirate’s Bryan Reynolds of a home run with a spectacular catch over the wall in the ninth inning of their win.
The Reds remained one game back of the Mets for the final NL wild-card spot.
“Under the circumstances, that’s one of the best plays I’ve ever seen,” Reds manager Terry Francona said. “You take the time of the game, the time of the season, how high he got up.”
Marte jumped at the wall and reached back above the first-row of seats to catch Reynolds’ drive for the second out of the ninth.
Marte also had the other two outs in the ninth as Emilio Pagan picked up his career-high 30th save in 36 chances.
Elsewhere on Thursday, it was:
‧ Athletics 5, Astros 11
‧ Blue Jays 6, Red Sox 1
‧ Mariners 6, Rockies 2
‧ Orioles 6, Rays 5
‧ Rangers 0, Twins 4
‧ Yankees 5, White Sox 3
Wilyer Abreu watched the ball leave the park and tossed his bat high in the air. His Venezuela teammates streamed out of the dugout in celebration. The comeback was on and the win over the reigning World Baseball Classic (WBC) champion Japan was within reach. Japan, their 11-game WBC winning streak on the line, held a 5-4 lead in the sixth inning of Saturday’s thrilling quarter-final matchup when Abreu put his team ahead with the biggest swing of the game: a three-run shot off Hiromi Itoh that sent the loanDepot Park crowd into a passionate roar and helped seize Venezuela’s 8-5
A BREATHLESS BATTLE: France clinched the championship in a vicious back-and-forth match with England, denying Ireland the title by just a few points France won back-to-back Six Nations titles after beating England 48-46 on a last-second penalty-kick by Thomas Ramos in a thriller for the ages on Saturday. England scored their seventh try in the 77th minute and converted for 46-45. If the score held for a few more minutes, Ireland would have been crowned the champion. But France pressed yet again with 14 men, lost possession, regained it, and earned two simultaneous penalties after the fulltime siren. Captain Antoine Dupont debated with referee Nika Amashukeli where the penalty spots were. Ramos, who did not miss a goal-kick all night, finally lined up his seventh
Home runs are greeted with a celebratory shot of espresso and the donning of an Armani jacket. Victories are marked with bottles of red wine while the soaring voice of opera singer Andrea Bocelli echoes through the locker room. Welcome to baseball, Italian-style. Written off as 80-1 underdogs before the World Baseball Classic started, Italy’s fairytale tournament has carried them all the way to today’s (Taipei time) semi-finals in Miami against Venezuela. On Saturday, Italy — who scored a stunning upset of a star-studded US lineup during the pool phase — kept their unbeaten campaign alive with a nail-biting 8-6
Kimi Antonelli became Formula 1’s second-youngest race winner with a composed drive to victory for Mercedes in an eventful Chinese Grand Prix yesterday. The 19-year-old Italian was the youngest pole position starter and briefly lost the lead to Lewis Hamilton of Ferrari at the start, but retook it soon after and was in control after that. “We did it! We did it!” Antonelli shouted to his team on the radio amid laughs and whoops. It was another 1-2 finish for Mercedes to start the season as Antonelli’s teammate George Russell came through a battle with both Ferraris to finish second. Lewis Hamilton was
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