Shohei Ohtani, Aaron Judge, 100 losses and … a guy with a .220 batting average? It was an eventful weekend in the baseball world.
Let’s jump right into five major storylines from the weekend that was in MLB.
Aaron Judge cannot stop homering
Three games, three more home runs for Aaron Judge, the best baseball player on the planet.
Judge is currently on an absolute heater, with nine homers in his past 10 games. He smacked two more on Sunday at home against the Colorado Rockies in a series-winning victory for his Yankees. Each time he connects for one, it’s a wonderful combination of awe and comedy. “No way” quickly becomes “of course he did.”
Unless he gets hurt or forgets the rules, Judge is the runaway favorite for AL MVP. His second blast Sunday was his 51st of the year, which makes him just the fifth player in MLB history with three 50-homer seasons. The other four are either would-be Hall of Famers kept out by steroid involvement (Alex Rodriguez, Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa) or literally Babe Ruth. Twelve more homers, and Judge will break the American League record that he set in 2022.
And don’t forget: Judge’s sensational season got off to a sluggish start. Through 35 games, he had a .743 OPS and six homers. That’s a 28-homer pace — productive for many MLB hitters, woefully insufficient for Judge. Since that date, Judge has cracked 45 homers in 94 games. Over a 162-game season, that’s good for a 77-homer pace.
It feels irresponsible to describe Barry Bonds’ record of 73 big flies in a single season as “in reach,” but Judge is the first player in a long time for whom that statement doesn’t feel like an absolute joke.
“If there’s any guy in the league that can do it, I think it’s going to be him,” Judge’s teammate Juan Soto told reporters, including MLB.com’s Brian Hoch, after Sunday’s win.
Shohei Ohtani goes 40/40 before the end of August
A year ago, Braves outfielder Ronald Acuña Jr. became the fifth player in MLB history to crush 40 homers and steal 40 bases in the same season, joining Alfonso Soriano, Alex Rodriguez, Barry Bonds and Jose Canseco in that exclusive club. Less than 365 days later, that club has another member: Shohei Ohtani, who became the first player to notch the accomplishment before the end of August.
The Dodgers’ (temporary) designated hitter entered Friday’s game against Tampa Bay with 39 steals and 39 home runs. He swiped second in the bottom of the fourth after reaching on a single for his 40th steal and then blasted a walk-off grand slam for his 40th homer. Los Angeles lost a squeaker to the Rays on Saturday before winning the series with a late charge Sunday.
There’s no question that the 40/40 club has become less exclusive with recent changes that make base-stealing easier. Acuña, who stole 73 last year, was probably getting there anyway. Maybe that would’ve also been the case for Ohtani.
But multiple things can be true: Going 40/40 is both easier than it has ever been and still outrageously impressive. It’s downright comical that when Ohtani realized he’d be out for this season as a pitcher after having elbow surgery, he decided he’d steal a ton of bases instead. To some degree, it makes sense. He has always had the speed; now he has more energy and fewer disincentives.
Considering how quickly he reached the mark, there’s an off-chance that Ohtani becomes the first and only member of the 50/50 club.
Orioles and Astros split
Two shoo-in postseason teams going in different directions split a four-game set at Camden Yards over the weekend. Baltimore, which got off to a scorching start this season, has been a middling endeavor for nearly 10 weeks now. The O’s have a .500 record since June 11.
Houston, on the other hand, has the best record in the American League since May 1. If not for their horrible April — the ‘Stros went 10-15 that month — Alex Bregman, Jose Altuve and crew would be in the mix for a playoff bye.
On Thursday, Astros rookie starter Spencer Arrighetti diced up the Birds in the opener, allowing just three hits across six scoreless innings. In a postgame interview, the Houston-area kid doubled down on his childhood club’s resurgence, telling FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal that “The Astros are back.”
That proclamation looked flimsy a day later, when Astros reliever Bryan Abreu surrendered a cacophonous, go-ahead grand slam to Anthony Santander in the eighth inning to send Camden Yards a’rocking. It was a similar story Saturday, with the Astros dominating most of the afternoon until a bases-clearing, three-RBI double from young buck Jackson Holliday gave the O’s a 3-2 lead they wouldn’t relinquish. Late homers from Alex Bregman and the underrated Yainer Díaz helped Houston take the finale for a split.
Even though both clubs left the encounter with two wins, Houston outplayed Baltimore for most of the series. Ten of the 12 runs the O’s scored in the series came on three hits: Santander’s grand slam, Holliday’s double and a Ramon Urías three-run shot on Sunday. The Birds have real problems in the ‘pen, but it all starts with their lineup, which has five weeks to find its mojo before the games really start to matter.
White Sox lose their 100th game
The substandard South Siders keep making history. With their 9-4 loss to the Detroit Tigers on Sunday, the Chicago White Sox reached the oh-so-horrible 100-loss plateau. Well, “100-loss abyss” is probably a more apt description. Each loss is a powerful reminder that this organization is in a dark and gloomy place.
The Sox, whose 21-game losing streak made national headlines earlier this month, are on pace to finish the season 38-124. That would break the modern-era record for losses “held” by the 1962 Mets, a club that lost 120 games in the franchise’s first season.
Chicago starting pitcher Jonathan Cannon, who earned the win in the club’s landmark, schneid-stopping victory on Aug. 7, got cranked by the Tigers on Sunday. The rookie hurler surrendered eight hits and four walks in four innings. Meanwhile, a hodgepodge of Tigers relievers limited the Sox offense to four runs. Which, honestly, was not the worst offensive showing. The White Sox don’t score four runs that often.
Coincidentally, the White Sox are set to finish their unforgettable season with a three-game set in Detroit in late September. The 2003 Tigers hold the American League record for most losses in a season (119) — could be fate.
Pete Crow-Armstrong might be the real deal
You could be forgiven for not being locked into a Cubs-Marlins series between the National League’s worst team (Miami) and perhaps its most disappointing (Chicago). But something happened Friday that should enter and stick in your brain.
Chicago rookie outfielder Pete Crow-Armstrong raced around the sacks for an inside-the-park homer in just 14.08 seconds. That’s the second-fastest home-to-home time ever recorded and the fastest since a Byron Buxton 13.85-second mad dash in 2017.
But while PCA has remarkable wheels that also allow him to play some of the best center-field defense in baseball, his bat has taken a huge step forward over the past few months. Admittedly, the full-season numbers aren’t great (.220/.270/.386), but the 22-year-old has tallied an OPS just under .800 since July 1.
That has come despite his being the victim of bad batted ball luck over that span. PCA’s batting average on balls in play (BABIP) should, considering his speed, be above the league-average mark of .300, but since July 1, he has a .255 BABIP.
All the under-the-hood batted-ball and swing-decision metrics are also trending up for the electrifying young speedster, who could be developing into a core piece of the next good Cubs team.
