Mookie Betts carried the Los Angeles Dodgers to a sweep of the Minnesota Twins and yet another one-run win. The Dodgers now are 14-11 in such games this season.
Additional benchmarks reached on Wednesday are the Dodgers sitting at 52-29 through 81 games played, or at the midway point of their season. L.A. was the first team to 50 wins, then 51, and now 52. They remain two games ahead of the Milwaukee Brewers for the best record in baseball.
The Dodgers also are 20-10 in Interleague play this year, which is the best record in the Majors.
Dodgers 4, Twins 3: key takeaways
Mookie Betts hits 300 and cycle watch
Building off recent improvement at the plate, Betts went 3-for-4 and finished a triple shy of the cycle. He also made multiple impressive plays at shortstop, one of which saved a run.
Betts got the Dodgers on the board in the second inning with the 300th home run of his career. Betts became the 169th player in MLB history to reach 300 homers. But of those, he’s among just 30 players all-time with at least 400 doubles, 300 home runs and 150 stolen bases.
Shohei Ohtani and Dalton Rushing disagreement
Wednesday was Ohtani’s 13th start of the season but only his third time this year pitching to Dalton Rushing, who has taken on duties at catcher with Will Smith on the injured list. Ohtani previously remarked of a need to take a more deliberate approach to ensuring strong communication with Rushing, and that certainly was needed against the Twins.
An apparent mix-up in the bottom of the second inning resulted in a passed ball with the bases loaded. Ohtani then gave up a two-run single before he could get out of the inning. Prior to doing so, Ohtani challenged a pitch call, much to Rushing’s dismay.
The second-year catcher attempted to gesture for Ohtani to not initiate the ABS challenge and shook his head in disagreement. Ohtani’s first challenge as a pitcher this season proved to be correct.
In the third inning, the SportsNet LA broadcast captured Freddie Freeman, manager Dave Roberts and pitching coach Mark Prior each speaking individually with Rushing.
Ohtani bounced back from the saga to strike out the side in the third inning. He proceeded to turn in a quality start by getting through six innings and allowing just the three runs (two earned).
Shohei Ohtani’s blister and velocity
Roberts said before the game he didn’t anticipate Ohtani’s blister bleeding like it had in prior outings, and that proved to be true. Moreover, Ohtani averaged 100 mph on his fastball in a single start for the first time in his career.
Though, that was with the benefit of rounding up. Baseball Savant had Ohtani’s official fastball average at 99.8 mph. He threw it 32 times out of 89 total pitches. Even if taking Ohtani’s true 99.8 mph average fastball velocity, that still is a career high.
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