Category: MLB

The conveyor belt of top prospects to the major leagues has shown little signs of slowing – and plenty of young dudes are getting rich along the way.

Kevin McGonigle’s instant impact for the Detroit Tigers paired with the eight-year, $150 million deal he signed on Tuesday, April 15 epitomized a trend that’s touched both leagues and multiple levels of the game. No. 1 overall prospect Konnor Griffin was called up after just a week and shortly thereafter signed a nine-year, $140 million deal.

Meanwhile, rookies such as JJ Wetherholt, Chase DeLauter and Carter Jensen are influencing the game in multiple facets, showing a comfort level that belies the fact they played their first regular season games just three weeks ago.

So, who’s next?

USA TODAY Sports examines six top prospects off to hot starts in the minor leagues and - with the key April 20 checkpoint for clubs to save a year of service time looming – who might be next up on their way to the big leagues:

SNY | Chelsea Janes: For the first time since the 2025 postseason, Yankees shortstop Anthony Volpe played a competitive baseball game. It happened to be with the Yanks’ Double-A affiliate, the Somerset Patriots, as he starts his rehab assignment after offseason labrum surgery. He said he felt great and called it a big milestone.

Regarding the next steps in his recovery process, Yankees manager Aaron Boone said that he will play minor league games until at least next week. After resting on Wednesday, he will return for five-plus frames on Thursday and Friday, then take a day off Saturday, and play again on Sunday. After Monday’s offday, he’ll likely go to Scranton to continue his rehab. “Probably four or five games next week, then we’ll kind of evaluate and see where we’re at from there,” Boone said.

In the postgame following the Yanks’ exciting win on Wednesday, Boone dropped another nugget: Gerrit Cole will be joining Volpe on the rehab trail with Somerset. It’ll be his first pro start since underdoing Tommy John surgery in March 2025. Obviously he has a long way to go to build up, but it’s a significant milestone for the ace on his journey back to a big-league mound.

NY Daily News | Gary Phillips: After sending Yerry De Los Santos back to Triple-A late on Tuesday, the Yankees announced the promotion of Angel Chivilli on Wednesday to take a place on the roster and in the bullpen. He has pitched 8.1 perfect innings with Scranton so far after a rough spring. The 23-year-old had a 6.18 ERA over 73 MLB games in Colorado in the last two seasons, 2024 and 2025.

“We think there’s more room there for his secondary to become really good pitches for him,” Aaron Boone said. “For him, it’s about controlling the strike zone and command. If he can control counts, he’s got some swing and miss with his secondary stuff. The fastball is big. He’ll be in the mid-to-upper-90s with his fastball, but he needs his secondary.”

New York Post | Mark W. Sánchez: If you thought Ryan McMahon’s recent bunt attempt was bizarre, well, it appears to be part of a broader organizational focus on bunting. Before the Yankees’ official round of batting practice on Tuesday, José Caballero, Cody Bellinger, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Trent Grisham, and Ryan McMahon took turns to lay down bunts against a pitching machine. What does this mean for the Yankees and their 2026 approach? We don’t know, but Austin Wells successfully got on base with a bunt on Wednesday.

FanGraphs | Dan Szymborski: Even though he hasn’t played every day, Ben Rice is terrorizing the league already. Szymborski marvels at his 70 percent hard-hit rate and says he’s here to stay. “If you’re a fan of another team in the AL East, as I am (Baltimore Orioles), you’ve probably been waiting for Rice to come crashing back to Earth. Given how he’s hit in 2026, however, I fear we’ll have to pin our collective hopes on other sources of Yankees misfortune. Ben Rice’s power is real and it is spectacular,” he explained.

Yahoo Sports | Jake Mintz: This is a wonderful tribute to the 103-year-old Rachel Robinson, Jackie’s widow, with a touching article praising her legacy on his day. Shared are stories of how they met, how they fell in love, and how she helped one of the most prominent figures in baseball history through thick and thin.

“Throughout Jackie’s most tumultuous times, Rachel was a rock, there by his side as he broke baseball’s color barrier,” Mintz wrote. It’s definitely worth a read.

The Mets' losing streak has hit eight games after their 8-2 loss to the Dodgers on Wednesday night.

It was a game filled with the offensive outage that has plagued this team for over a week now, a bullpen implosion and miscues in the field and basepaths that have become daily for this squad after the first 19 games of the season. All of that has led manager Carlos Mendoza, visibly upset, to state the obvious about his team after another lackluster defeat.

"We’re not playing good baseball right now," Mendoza said. "Everybody’s frustrated. We gotta use the off day tomorrow to regroup and get back at it because we gotta get going here. It’s not a good showing right now."

The Mets scored just two runs on five hits -- the second run coming in the ninth inning after the game was well in hand -- on Wednesday night. In the three-game series, New York scored just three runs and collected 12 hits. The Dodgers had 12 hits in Wednesday's game alone.

"I don’t really wrap my mind around it. It’s tough right now," Bo Bichette said of the team's losing streak after the game. "If we knew the answer, we’d do it. But we’ll keep working to try and figure it out."

Bichette, the biggest free agent signing on the offensive side this offseason, went 1-for-4 with a run scored in the series finale. He was just 2-for-11 in the series and is now batting .228 in the early going. But it's not just Bichette. With Juan Soto out with a calf injury, the Mets have simply not been able to get consistent offense.

During the eight-game losing streak, the Mets have scored just 12 runs. They've pushed across more than two runs just once in that span and have been shut out three times. It's something that no one who spoke after Wednesday's loss could understand, let alone explain.

"Guys just have to start playing better. It’s as simple as that," Mendoza said. "They’re too talented. But right now we’re not seeing anything on the field. It has nothing to do with preparation or the work they’re putting in. We just have to go out there and do it."

"I mean, it’s surprising, but you go through these things," Bichette said. "This is a bit extreme, probably, but it doesn’t help facing two of the best in the game the last two days. We could be swinging the bat well and running into [Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Shohei Ohtani], it’s like running into a buzzsaw. ...I don’t really got much to say other than I can’t explain it and will keep working on it to figure it out."

Clay Holmes, who held the Dodgers lineup to just two runs over five innings on Wednesday, repeatedly said that no one is pointing fingers in the clubhouse and that they all have their part to play in the losing streak. 

"It’s baseball. If we had an answer, we definitely don’t want to be in this spot," Holmes said. "It’s one of those things you go in those stretches where it’s tough. There’s no pointing fingers. Everyone has to take it upon themself to help the team win."

Holmes shared his optimism with the reporters in the clubhouse. When asked what makes him confident that the Mets will turn things around, he said that the players' history of playing well is there.

"What people have done in the past is way better than what we’ve done here," Holmes said. "Can’t just look at the last couple of games and that defines us. These stretches, there’s a history and a future where we know where we can go."

Speaking on the offense specifically, Mendoza explained what is frustrating him the most during this stretch.

"We’re not dictating at-bats," he said. "Getting beat by fastballs even though there was some good fastballs byOhtani today, we swung through a lot of them today. We have to be able to put pressure and be in attack mode. Right now, understanding what guys are going through is contagious. At the same time, nobody is feeling sorry for us. We got to be able to dictate at-bats."

Bichette, who acknowledged that the players are upset by what's going on, echoed what Francisco Lindor said after Tuesday's loss about the offense being more competitive, and perhaps they can use it as a springboard to get back in the win column.

"Last couple of games, we competed a lot better," Bichette said. "At the end of the day, the mindset is to compete, I don’t care what the at-bats look like as long as we’re in there fighting. Two great pitchers that beat us. Obviously, we got to be better. But the commonality is two great pitchers."

The Mets will get a reprieve before starting a three-game series against the Cubs in Chicago on Friday afternoon. New York has played nine straight games and the off day could do the team good. 

But make no mistake, the Mets are not happy with how the early season has gone, and that's exactly what the Mets skipper wants to see.

"They’re pissed. Frustrated. Not happy about it," Mendoza said of the mood of the team. "I want them to be pissed." 

We’re all still trying to figure out what went wrong in a game that the Mariners were winning handily for eight innings. Emerson Hancock was brilliant, giving up just one two-run homer over six innings of work. Luke Raley had his first ever four-hit game, and made a nifty catch in the outfield to boot. The Mariners did strike out double-digits (12), but also recorded double-digit hits (10) and took seven walks. And all of it didn’t matter, because the bullpen allowed a five-run inning in the ninth and the Padres walked it off, 7-6. The Mariners have now lost seven straight games on the road. They are back to three games below .500 after getting tantalizingly close to a winning record for the first time since March 30th. The good vibes, which roared to life after a four-game sweep against the Astros, are once again on life support.

Seriously, what the heck?

Things started off so well. Emerson Hancock was again fantastic, working through the sixth inning with the only damage against him a two-run homer from the impossibly hot-hitting Xander Bogaerts (also the only Padres hitter who had homered off Hancock previously). Hancock was untouchable over the first half of his outing, no-hitting the Padres the first time through the order before giving up a base hit to Bogaerts, who had two of the four hits the Padres mustered off Hancock. Hancock owned the strike zone tonight, throwing 20 of 23 first-pitch strikes and constantly working ahead of hitters, finishing with six strikeouts to just one walk. There were a couple of those wonky sweepers that strayed too far from the zone, but he also collected three of his six strikeouts on the pitch. He pounded the bottom of the zone with the sinker and sweeper, but also successfully changed hitters’ eye levels with his four-seamer up, staying out of the meaty part of the zone. It was a stellar performance from Hancock on Jackie Robinson Day; the two happen to share a hometown (Cairo, Georgia).

That is the story that should be told about this game – that and the performance of the offense, which scored six runs for Hancock. Dominic Canzone got the Mariners on the board in the second, as the scalding-hot Randy-Raley duo got on base (Arozarena with another walk, Luke with a nice single on a changeup); Canzone then torched the hardest-hit ball the Mariners have had all season, a 114 mph laser line drive that hit the foul pole that’s in play for some reason and rolled away from a bewildered-looking Nick Castellanos.

The Mariners could have gotten more in the third – Cal Raleigh recorded hit #500, a double, and then Jackson Merrill robbed Julio of a home run over the center field wall. Payback for all the homers Julio has robbed, I guess, but it sure feels unfair, especially considering how this game ended.

But the Mariners were only temporarily discouraged. The patience the hitters showed in the Astros series returned with a vengeance in the third; Cole Young and Leo Rivas both worked two-out walks, loading the bases (Randy had led off the inning with a double). The Rivas walk was especially impressive, as Rivas challenged a strike three call on a pitch clearly inside. That set up Brendan Donovan, who got himself into a hitter-friendly 2-0 count before lacing a ball through the right side of the infield for another two runs.

Cal Raleigh also worked a walk that inning, as the Mariners pushed Padres starter Randy Vásquez to 85 pitches in the fourth. Not that the Padres bullpen is any walk in the park, but after needing to use their leverage arms last night, that set up the Mariners well – something Luke Raley took advantage of against new pitcher Ron Marinaccio in the fifth, walloping this no-doubter two-run homer (scoring Randy, once again on in scoring position thanks to a single and a stolen base, his fifth already of the year).

This would also be a nice story to tell about this game: Luke Raley, risen from the specter of injury that haunted his 2025, hitting a new career milestone, on a night when his buddy Cal Raleigh also hit a career milestone and his other new buddy Brendan Donovan knocked in two runs of his own. A real power of friendship recap.

But unfortunately, it’s not the one we can tell, because the ninth inning happened. Backing up, because again, we’re all still trying to figure out what happened here: Eduard Bazardo pitched a perfect seventh inning, and Gabe Speier handled the eighth. Dan Wilson then called for Andrés Muñoz to come in for the ninth in a non-save situation. Muñoz hasn’t looked right this year, seemingly struggling with his slider command, but has managed to scrape out of some sticky situations. There would be no scraping out tonight, unless it was the scraping out of my eyeballs with a melon baller after watching the bottom of the ninth.

To be fair to Muñoz, he suffered some bad batted-ball luck, although he didn’t help himself out by walking Manny Machado to lead off the inning. Gavin Sheets then snuck a ball past Donovan at third, putting runners on at second and third with no one out. Muñoz was able to get Nick Castellanos swinging after a slider for the first out, but then suffered more bad luck on a Baltimore chop from Ty France that Muñoz couldn’t field cleanly, loading the bases and bringing up the tying run in the form of pinch-hitter Fernando Tatís. Tatís hit a sac fly, bringing in a run.

Okay. Not ideal, but okay. Two outs, still a three-run lead, an out at any base but third, and the nine-hole hitter coming up. But despite getting Luis Campusano in an 0-2 count, Muñoz went back to the slider for a third time and hung it, allowing a hard-hit single and turning over the lineup. It wasn’t a scoring play, but in retrospect, this was probably the breaking point of this game. Ramón Laureano would then hit another single, yanking a good pitch inside for a single because that’s what Laureano does, setting up the wunderkind Jackson Merrill for a walkoff winner off new pitcher Jose Ferrer. We can heap a little fault on Ferrer, even with Muñoz taking the loss, for going to the sinker for a third straight pitch in a 2-2 count and failing to put away his lefty hitter, and maybe to Randy Arozarena for dropping the transfer on Merrill’s double, eliminating any play at the plate (merciful, some might say, the some being recap writers), but this mess was of Muñoz’s doing. It’s the worst solution to a mystery story I didn’t want to write in the first place. Here’s hoping for a happier story next time.

On Jackie Robinson Day, it would be the A’s who’d strike first. Tyler Soderstrom’s opposite field double brought home Carlos Cortes.

This would be the first time in 2026 that the A’s filled the box score in the first inning. They were the only team who hadn’t done so this season.

Off the bat, it kind’ve looked like Ezequiel Durán had the play but he’d lose it on the jump at the warning track. A quick recovery from the Rangers’ left fielder prevented Soderstrom from advancing any further than second base. The A’s would strand him there to end the first inning.

In the top of the second, A’s starter J.T. Ginn was able to escape a little drama. A trio of walks loaded the bases but no damage was done, thanks to Joc Pederson striking out and Danny Jensen hitting into a double play.

Ginn doesn’t have the greatest track record against Texas. Yes, he secured the last ever win in Oakland against them back in 2024, but last season, in just around twenty innings against the Rangers, he offered up six home runs in around twenty innings!

He’d serve up another to shortstop Corey Seager in the third inning. After the A’s added a little insurance on a Denzel Clarke RBI single, Seager and the Rangers tied it right back up on a no doubter to deep right field.

From there, we’d find ourselves in a bit of a pitcher’s duel. Rangers starter Kumar Rocker provided a wipeout slider that had A’s batters struggling to resist, while the signature J.T. Ginn sinker kept the Rangers on the ground floor.

After a slight lull, Shea Langeliers would get ahold of one, ripping it down the third base line for a lead off double in the bottom of the fifth. Now this is where you could feel the A’s getting to Rocker. They had him on the ropes. A mound visit was called on Rocker’s behalf, after his walk to Tyler Soderstrom. He’d get Jacob Wilson to line out to Ezequiel Durán but that would be it for the big right-hander. His day would be over after 4.2 innings pitched, 4 hits, 2 ER, 4 BB, and 6Ks on 97 pitches. Lefty Jalen Beeks would be brought in to replace him. Despite walking Jeff McNeil to load the bases, he’d get out of the jam by striking out Max Muncy to end the inning.

What’s frustrating about THIS particular Muncy strikeout is that not only were the bases juiced, but he had a 3-1 count on Beeks when he decided to go hunting for a fastball up and out of the zone.

Ginn’s day would wrap up not too far behind Rocker’s. He’d give the ball to Hogan Harris after a one out single by Wyatt Langford. No damage done by the Rangers though as Harris was able to shut down Monday’s player of the game in Jake Burger.

Now we have to talk about Nick Kurtz.

In the bottom of the 6th, Kurtz came up to the plate with Lawrence Butler on second base. What did he do in this at-bat? Strikeout on a fastball right down the middle. His third of the game up to this point and quite frankly, a telling K. I know it’s early and we don’t want to have the conversation yet, but can we at least admit that Kurtz has not been the player we’ve needed him to be? His hitting woes actually run through the spring, where in 21 games he hit only .201 with 16Ks. In fact, if you go back to his performance at the end of last season, you’ll find that his September numbers took a noticeable dip. His slash in the final month was actually his worst. Even weaker than the April/May campaign that he was criticized for having.

So what do we make of Kurtz’s struggles? If we find ourselves in a similar situation by June, could a trip to AAA a la Lawrence Butler in 2024 be appropriate?

While you think on that, watch this…

Just like that the A’s were back in possession of the lead. According to statcast, Shea’s homer traveled 467 ft! At this time, that’s the longest home run of the 2026 season.

Jacob Wilson must’ve been jealous of how cool Shea Langeliers looked in the new elephant mask, because he’d send one for a ride in the bottom of the 7th.

But what would a middle of the week A’s game be without a little drama? Kotsay went to Mark Leiter Jr. in the top of the 8th and that third out just felt out of reach the entire time. He’d toss one Jake Burger’s way, who’d clobber it deep to left field for a three-run home run.

You thought a 6-2 lead in the 8th was safe? This is the 2026 A’s we’re talking about! They better keep hitting and hitting until the game’s over or their season will be over before playoffs begin in October.

Fortunately for us A’s fans, that would be the extent of it for the evening. Joel Kuhnel came in after Leiter Jr. and continued to pitch like he wants his own designated seat in the bullpen. There’s something very Kenley Jansen-esque in Kuhnel’s delivery that makes me feel safe. Sometimes all you need in the back end of the bullpen is a big boy with a cutter.

He’d get Andrew Mccutchen to strikeout to end the ball game. Kuhnel’s third save of the season and the first four-out save of his career.

It wasn’t an easy win but no one said it was going to be. For the first time since the 2021 season, the A’s are alone atop the American League West division. Tomorrow they’ll return, looking to take their fourth straight series win, their second of the year against a division rival, and hopefully the first quality start for Jacob Lopez in 2026.

LOS ANGELES — One dreadful plate appearance after another, the Mets got swept out to the Pacific Ocean on Wednesday and sank to the bottom.

Is this it? Is this rock bottom? It’s a question the Mets must ask with each new loss, hopeful for some ray of sunshine on which to latch.

Here’s one: They are finished with this series against the Dodgers. But maybe that’s not enough for this listless bunch.

Another night of offensive futility left the Mets with an 8-2 loss at Dodger Stadium that ran their losing streak to eight games. This was the seventh time during that stretch the Mets scored two runs or fewer.

“Everybody is upset,” Bo Bichette said. “You know why.”

It’s not just scoring: The Mets simply aren’t getting hits. They collected only five on this night and finished with 12 in the three-game series.

Shohei Ohtani was the chief tormentor Wednesday, pitching six dominant innings. A night earlier the Mets were stifled by Yoshinobu Yamamoto over 7 ²/₃ innings.

“It’s surprising, but you go through these things,” Bichette said. “This is a bit extreme, probably, but it doesn’t help facing two of the best in the game the last two days.”

This one turned into a runaway late, with the Dodgers receiving two homers — including a grand slam from Dalton Rushing against Devin Williams — in the eighth inning.

Clay Holmes, who departed his previous start with left hamstring tightness, gave the Mets a chance by allowing two earned runs on four hits and one walk over five innings. He was removed after 88 pitches.

“It’s one of those things where I don’t think you look around and point fingers,” Holmes said of the losing streak. “It’s not just the offense. Sometimes it’s going to happen and as pitchers we have got to be better and win games. Tonight I wasn’t good enough. You have got to look at how to win games as a team and lose them as a team.”

Hyeseong Kim launched a two-run homer in the second for the game’s first scoring. Rushing delivered a two-out double before Kim unloaded on a sinker, clearing the right-field fence.

It was the second homer Holmes allowed this season.

MJ Melendez’s first at-bat in a Mets uniform resulted in the team’s initial hit, a third-inning double. With two outs in the inning, Ohtani faced an 11-pitch at-bat against Francisco Lindor that culminated with a swinging strikeout on a 99-mph fastball that was well outside the strike zone.

Holmes received defensive help in the bottom of the inning as Luis Robert Jr. went full extension on a dive in center field to rob Freddie Freeman of an extra-base hit.

• CHECK OUT THE LATEST MLB STANDINGS AND METS STATS

Melendez’s RBI double in the fifth sliced the Dodgers’ lead to 2-1, but a base-running gaffe cost the Mets an opportunity for a larger inning. After drawing a leadoff walk, Francisco Alvarez, believing Carson Benge’s shot to left was caught by Teoscar Hernández, retreated to first base.

The ball was trapped by Hernández and Alvarez was thrown out at second base on a fielder’s choice. After Melendez’s RBI double, Lindor was retired by Ohtani to leave runners stranded on second and third.

“I just feel like we’re not dictating at-bats, and getting beat by fastballs” manager Carlos Mendoza said. “Even though there were some good fastballs from Ohtani today I feel like we have got to be able to put pressure.”

Ohtani capped his night by striking out the side in the sixth. Ohtani allowed one earned run on two hits and two walks in the 95-pitch outing.

Tobias Myers surrendered a homer to Hernández leading off the bottom of the sixth, extending the Dodgers’ lead to 3-1.

Myers threw a four-seamer over the middle that Hernandez crushed to right center for his fourth homer this season.

Benge doubled in the seventh, but was left stranded at third when Melendez whiffed against Blake Treinen to end the inning.

Any chance of a Mets comeback dissipated in the eighth on Rushing’s grand slam against Williams.

The right-hander, pitching for the first time in eight days, allowed two singles and a walk to begin the inning before Rushing cleared the center field fence.

Williams recorded just one out in the inning before he was removed.

“They are pissed, frustrated, obviously not happy about it,” Mendoza said of his players. “I want them to be pissed.”

Even with a reliever warm for the sixth inning on Wednesday, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts decided to ride with Shohei Ohtani.

On the rare night he wasn’t in the lineup as a hitter, the four-time MVP responded with a breathless exhibition of pure pitching dominance.

In the Dodgers’ 8-2 win over the New York Mets, Ohtani helped complete a three-game series sweep with six spectacular innings on the mound.

He gave up just one run. He allowed only two hits. And in a 10-strikeout exhibition, he saved his best stuff for the end of the night –– striking out the side in the top of the sixth with a swing-and-miss fastball, then curveball, then splitter.

Good morning, good afternoon and a very good night.

That was the story Wednesday, with the Dodgers (14-4) continuing their scorching hot start to the season even without the help of Ohtani’s bat.

As the two-way star continues to nurse a shoulder bruise he suffered on a hit-by-pitch Monday, the Dodgers decided to simplify his task, taking him out of the batting order so he could solely focus on his duties as a pitcher.

The move paid off perfectly, with Ohtani turning in perhaps his best start this year (despite allowing his first earned run of the campaign) while his DH replacement, Dalton Rushing, led the way offensively with a double and a grand slam.

“It was actually really good to watch him just focus on one thing,” manager Dave Roberts said of Ohtani. “I thought that just channeling all that energy into pitching was helpful.”

Indeed, in Ohtani’s 95-pitch gem, he had every arrow in his six-pitch quiver working.

His upper-90s mph fastball was dotted at the top of the zone. Big-bending sweepers and late-breaking curveballs and fall-of-the-table splitters helped complement it. 

And the few times he faced stress, he also back and dialed up triple-digit heat –– most notably, firing off four-straight 100 mph fastballs to strand runners at second and third after allowing his lone run in the fifth.

“That was a situation,” Ohtani said in Japanese, “in which I had to exert max effort to hold them.”

At that point, Roberts considered removing Ohtani from the game. After he threw 22 pitches in the fifth, the Dodgers had Blake Treinen ready to go for the sixth.

“I was thinking about potentially pulling the plug right there,” the manager said. “But once he finished that (fifth) inning, I wanted to give him the opportunity to go back out there for the sixth.”

Thus, Ohtani returned to the bump, put an exclamation point on his outing by striking out the side, then exited the game to a loud ovation.

“I mean, it’s Shohei,” Rushing quipped. “I don’t have too much more to say on top of that.”

“I think he’s arguably one of the best now,” he later added, “(especially) when you give him that opportunity to just solely worry about pitching.”

On the other side of the ball, it was Rushing who spurred the Dodgers’ offense in Ohtani’s absence, helping them take an early lead and then pull away late.

In the second inning, he lined a two-out, two-strike double that preceded a two-run homer from Hyeseong Kim. Then, after a Tesocar Hernández homer in the sixth extended the lead, the backup catcher delivered the knockout punch in a five-run eighth inning by belting his first career grand slam off Mets closer Devin Williams.

“Well, I’m not getting used to it, I’ll tell you that,” Rushing joked about replacing Ohtani as DH. “But he told me to hit a homer for him, and I guess it worked out in the end.”

What it means

The Dodgers completed their second sweep of the season, and have now won 10 of 12 games by finishing this homestand with a 5-1 record.

They are also 9-0 against National League opponents to this point, making easy work of a Mets team that –– prior to their dreadful 7-12 start to this season –– was thought to be their biggest competition for this year’s pennant.

During the series, Dodgers starters gave up just two runs over 21 ⅔ innings while striking out 19 batters.

They were also better defensively, with Wednesday’s highlights including a couple tough short-hoppers that Max Muncy cleanly turned at third base, then a diving stop from Kim at shortstop to end the eighth inning. 

Most of all, the bottom of their lineup remained productive, with Rushing’s 2-for-4 display highlighting a six-hit effort from their Nos. 6-9 batters.

Who’s hot

If Ohtani’s surface-line stats weren’t impressive enough, the way he navigated Wednesday’s start only added to the performance.

Several times, he seemingly toyed with a Juan Soto-less Mets lineup that has scored just 12 runs during an eight-game losing streak.

He used a slide step to finally strike out Francisco Lindor in an 11-pitch at-bat to end the third. He ran the pitch clock down against Brett Baty in the fourth before getting him to hit a harmless comebacker to the mound.

After spending much of the past two years recovering from a second Tommy John surgery, it was a further reminder that the 31-year-old is quickly getting comfortable again as a full-time pitcher –– helping him finish the night with a 0.50 ERA this season.

“I do think that he looks at (pitching) as an art,” Roberts said. “It’s not just trying to bully guys with the fastball. It’s kind of how you set guys up, front to back, east-west, and use your entire pitch mix.”

Who’s not

This was going to be Kyle Tucker, after he entered the eighth inning 0-for-4. But even the scuffling $240 million offseason signing salvaged his night with a stat-padding home run after Rushing’s grand slam.

Still, the Dodgers are waiting on Tucker to truly heat up, with his game-winning hit on Tuesday failing to snap him out of his early-season slump

Defensively, Tucker also had a forgettable moment in the fifth, when MJ Melendez plated the Mets’ only run off Ohtani with an RBI double that Tucker failed to get to in the right field corner.

Up next

The Dodgers are off Thursday, before starting a week-long road trip Friday with a four-game set in Denver against the Colorado Rockies. That will be followed by a three-game series in San Francisco against the Giants.

Download The California Post App, follow us on social, and subscribe to our newsletters

The Mets were swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers on Wednesday night following an 8-2 loss.

Here are the takeaways...

-- New York's struggling offense was once again stymied, this time by Shohei Ohtani, who got the call after Yoshinobu Yamamoto held the Mets to one run over 7.2 innings on Tuesday night. Ohtani was similarly dominant over his six innings of work, striking out 10 and allowing a run on two hits and two walks. 

-- The only Met to figure out Ohtani was MJ Melendez, who got the start after getting called up from the minors earlier in the day for the injured Jared Young, and who was making his team debut after being slotted into the lineup as the No. 8 hitter. 

After Ohtani set down the first seven batters of the game, Melendez hit a double to the gap in left center field in his first at-bat for New York. He was stranded on second base after Ohtani struck out the next two. In his second at-bat, Melendez got the better of Ohtani again with another double, this one over the head of right fielder Kyle Tucker that bounced into the stands for a ground-rule double. 

The hit drove in the Mets' first run of the night and ended a scoreless streak of 33 innings for Ohtani. It also put New York in business with runners on second and third and one out, but Tommy Pham struck out before Francisco Lindor lined out to end the inning with nothing else. 

-- That inning could've gone much differently for the Mets, though, if not for a baserunning mistake by Francisco Alvarez. Alvarez led off the inning with a walk, which brought up Carson Benge, who served one into left field that Teoscar Hernandez trapped in his glove after making a sliding attempt for the ball. Instead of reaching second base on the play, Alvarez thought the ball was caught and went back to first base and was thrown out at second base on the force out.

Not only did Alvarez rob the Mets of a chance for a big inning there, he also robbed Benge of a hit. Marcus Semien followed with a walk that would've loaded the bases with nobody out ahead of Melendez's ground-rule double. After letting Ohtani off the hook in the inning, the right-hander went back out the following inning and ended his night by striking out the side.

-- But Ohtani wasn't the only starting pitcher who had things going for him, as Clay Holmes also had a good performance. The right-hander went five innings, allowing two earned runs on four hits, a walk and a HBP while striking out four. He also added a wild pitch. 

Holmes' only blemish came in the second inning when he allowed a two-out double to Dalton Rushing before No. 8 hitter Hyeseong Kim hit a 2-1 sinker down the middle for a two-run home run. It was Kim's first homer of the season and his fourth career home run.

-- The Dodgers hit another home run in the sixth inning when Hernandez took Tobias Myers deep on the second pitch he threw to give Los Angeles a 3-1 lead. The wheels completely fell off for the Mets in the eighth inning when Devin Williams, who hadn't pitched in more than a week, came in for a non-save opportunity. 

Williams loaded the bases following two singles and a walk before Rushing unloaded on the first pitch he saw for a grand slam. It was the first runs allowed by Williams this season as the closer lasted just 0.1 innings and saw his ERA skyrocket to 6.75. The Dodgers added a solo shot by Kyle Tucker off Austin Warren, recalled from the minors on Tuesday, for good measure.

-- The Mets mustered just five hits, two of which came in the ninth, resulting in a run. One of the five hits was a one-hop double to the opposite field by Benge, who is starting to look better at the plate. Still, New York went 2-for-10 with RISP and has now lost eight in a row while scoring 12 runs (six in one game) during that time.

Game MVP: Shohei Ohtani

The Mets were able to push across a run to end his scoreless streak, but Ohtani was masterful and in control all night.

Highlights

MJ Melendez doubles in his first at-bat as a Met! pic.twitter.com/otSEDq5Qgk

— SNY (@SNYtv) April 16, 2026

What a catch by Luis Robert Jr.! pic.twitter.com/KJFtBuPjmF

— SNY (@SNYtv) April 16, 2026

Three strikeouts for Clay Holmes in the 4th pic.twitter.com/1R98VY6fDV

— SNY (@SNYtv) April 16, 2026

MJ Melendez delivers!

A ground rule double to bring the Mets within one! pic.twitter.com/V2xjRco9Oz

— SNY (@SNYtv) April 16, 2026

Carson Benge hits a one-hop double off the wall pic.twitter.com/YfHyMrrW1d

— SNY (@SNYtv) April 16, 2026

What's next

The Mets travel to Wrigley Field to take on the Chicago Cubs for a three-game series starting on Friday afternoon with first pitch scheduled for 2:20 p.m.

RHP Kodai Senga (0-2, 7.07 ERA) takes on RHP Edward Cabrera (1-0, 1.62 ERA).

The San Diego Padres loaded the bases with one out in the bottom of the ninth inning against Seattle Mariners closer Andres Munoz. The Padres were trailing the Mariners 6-2, and Fernando Tatis Jr. who did not start the game, came in to pinch-hit for Jake Cronenworth. Tatis Jr. worked the count full against Munoz and hit a deep line drive to right field which resulted in a sacrifice fly as Manny Machado tagged up from third and scored to cut the Padres’ deficit to 6-3. Luis Campusano, who came in for Freddy Fermin early in the game after he took a foul ball off his catcher’s mask, singled to left-center field to push the score to 6-4 with runners on the corners. Ramon Laureano followed and dumped the first pitch of his at-bat into left field, which scored Ty France from third to make the score, 6-5.

Jose Ferrer replaced Munoz and was given the task of facing Jackson Merrill. The third-year center fielder shot a line drive double on a 2-2 pitch just inside the third base bag that rolled down the line and into the corner where Seattle left fielder Randy Arozarena was unable to come up with it. Campusano and Laureano raced around the bases and came in to score to walk-off the Mariners, 7-6, pushing the Padres’ win streak to seven games.

San Diego entered the game against Seattle riding a six-game win streak and they had arguably their best starting pitcher three weeks into the season on the mound in Randy Vasquez. The Padres hitters faced Emerson Hancock, who is also off to a good start on the year, but one night after beating Bryan Woo, the Friar Faithful had confidence that San Diego would find a way to push the win streak to seven.

It was evident after the second inning that Vasquez was not as sharp as he had been in previous outings and the Padres hitters were struggling to figure out how to handle Hancock. Vasquez allowed two runs in the second inning following a walk, a single and a double by Dominic Canzone which gave the Mariners a 2-0 lead. Vazquez got into trouble again in the fourth inning when he allowed a leadoff double to Arozarena. He bounced back to get two outs against the next two hitters but then gave up back-to-back walks to load the bases. Brendan Donovan followed with a single to right field, which scored two runs and pushed the Seattle lead to 4-0.

San Diego struggled over the first 3 2/3 innings against the Seattle right-hander. The Padres were held without a hit until Xander Bogaerts broke the seal with a two-out single in the bottom of the third inning. Machado lined out one batter later and the inning came to a close.

Ron Marinaccio replaced Vasquez, who finished his night with four runs allowed on five hits with four walks and six strikeouts over four innings, on the mound in the top of the fifth inning. Marinaccio received a rude welcome from the Mariners. Arozarena hit a one-out single and stole second base before Luke Raley hit a two-run home run to right-center field to put Seattle up, 6-0. Raley had a successful night against San Diego pitching, recording four hits with two singles, a double and a home run.

The Padres were able to get on the board thanks to a two-run home run by Bogaerts in the bottom of the sixth inning to make the score 6-2. Merrill, who made an exceptional play in center field to take a home run away from Julio Rodriguez in the top of the third inning, hit a one-out single and Bogaerts brought him in with a home run, which was the 200th of his career. It was the only blemish on the night for Hancock who finished his outing with two runs allowed on four hits with one walk and six strikeouts over six innings.

San Diego will look to complete the sweep of Seattle at Petco Park on Thursday at 5:40 p.m.

In honor of the Philadelphia Phillies playing host to the 2026 Major League Baseball All-Star Game at Citizens Bank Park, we here at The Good Phight are launching a yearlong series that focuses on the history of the Phillies and the All-Star Game. Check back regularly for posts about the Phillies participation (or lack thereof) in the Midsummer Classic over its history.

It’s time once again for a look at some Phillies one-time All-Stars. However, unlike the rest of this series so far (which you cancatchup onhere) there is only one member of the 1960s Phillies who was a one-time All-Star as a member of the Phillies, and he was just under the decade threshold.

Grant Jackson, 1969

In 1942, Grant Jackson was born as one of nine children to Joseph and Luella Jackson in Fosteria, Ohio. He was a strong athlete from an early age, lettering in football, baseball, and track during his time in high school. Unfortunately, Jackson’s family was not very well off financially, and their situation worsened when his father passed away following a heart attack in 1960 at the age of 52. That forced Jackson’s older brother and biology teacher Carlos to assume the role of the father figure in his life and help support the family. Jackson finished high school in 1961 but did not have the grades to qualify for an athletic scholarship to Bowling Green University.

That’s when he decided to take a long shot and reach out to the most famous resident of his hometown, Tony Lucadello, who also just so happened to be a scout for the Phillies. Lucadello would wind up being responsible for numerous players signing with the Phillies, including Mike Schmidt, Fergie Jenkins, and Mickey Morandini. But in 1961, Lucadello decided to give the 18-year-old Jackson a shot, as the Phillies signed the small 6-foot, 180-pound pitcher to a contract worth just $1,500. But Jackson needed the money to help his family, so he accepted. Shortly after, Jackson was introduced to the cruel realities of baseball in the time before high school players had agents, as he discovered just two days after signing with the Phillies that the Milwaukee Braves were prepared to offer him $35,000.

In any case, Jackson’s pro career started in 1962 when he was just 19 years old with the Bakersfield Bears of the California League. Jackson would spend the next two seasons there before eventually earning a promotion Triple-A in 1965 to Arkansas. Jackson, an African American, was walking into a very hostile environment in Little Rock as described by Arkansas teammate Fergie Jenkins. Jenkins described the racial climate by saying “things were tenser, more overt in Arkansas” and describing incidents where players would leave games to find their cars vandalized with racial epithets.

Jackson was not long for Arkansas though, as the Phillies made him a September call-up and he made his major league debut on September 3rd, 1965, on the road against the Cincinnati Reds. He entered in the bottom of the fifth with two on and no outs, relieving Phillies starter Ray Kulp who left with a 6-3 lead but traffic on the bases. Jackson struck out the first two hitters he faced in Tony Pérez and Deron Johnson, but he then allowed a three-run homer to Frank Robinson that tied the game at 6-6. Jackson would go on to pitch two innings and be charged with the loss as the Reds mounted a ferocious late offensive barrage to win 17-6.

The 22-year-old Jackson went on to appear in six total games his rookie year including two starts. He allowed 11 runs and four home runs in just 13.2 innings, but he also struck out 15 to flash his potential. Jackson began 1966 with the team but was demoted after just two relief appearances, except this time the Phillies Triple-A affiliate was in San Diego instead of Little Rock. That’s where he would stay for the rest of 1966, going 10-8 with a 3.96 ERA in 23 starts. Jackson made the MLB team in 1967 and stayed there all season, but only appeared in 43 games with four starts.

But then Phillies manager Gene Mauch was fired early into the 1968 season, paving the way for Bob Skinner to take control of the ballclub. Skinner was able to help Jackson correct a mechanical flaw in his delivery by speeding him up on the mound. The change worked, as Jackson had his best season in the majors to that point with a 2.95 ERA in 61 innings across 33 games and six starts. It was enough for Skinner to name Jackson the fifth starter in his rotation entering the 1969 season. Some in the media were incredulous about the idea that Jackson, who was still only 26-years-old, had finally figured it out. As Bill Conlin wrote in the Philadelphia Daily News, the Jackson story “was written every spring training about this time and is a story filled with hope,” calling Jackson “wild as a Filmore Auditorium Rock concert and as undisciplined as a Berkley student.” Jackson had remarked that “People ask me if this is a now or never year, I tell them it’s going to be a now year. I’ve had my last never year. This is going to be my year.”

Despite Conlin’s disbelief in Jackson’s talk, the lefty backed it up and then some. The 1969 Phillies finished with 99 losses, but Jackson excelled in his first real chance at being a major league starting pitcher. He was 9-10 with a 3.32 ERA in the first half of the season, earning him a nomination to the NL All-Star team for the contest to take place July 23rd at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C. However, despite being the Phillies only representative at the midsummer classic, Jackson did not appear in the game as the NL went on to win 9-3 in large part thanks to two home runs from Willie McCovey of the Giants.

Jackson finished his All-Star season with a 14-18 record and a 3.34 ERA across 253 innings pitched with 180 strikeouts. It appeared he had finally proven himself as a pitcher, but he regressed mightily in 1970 and finished with a 5.29 ERA while having disputes with new manager Frank Lucchesi. The Phillies then finally gave up on Jackson, sending him to Baltimore in December 1970 in a package that included Sam Parilla and Jim Hutto in exchange for top outfield prospect Roger Freed who had just won MVP of the International League.

It was the best thing for Jackson’s career, as he never again had a losing record and totaled a 3.09 ERA in 538 appearances over his next 12 seasons of his career, including the 1979 season when he won the World Series as a member of the “We Are Family” Pittsburgh Pirates. Jackson had a pivotal impact in Game 7, entering a 1-0 game in the fifth inning and delivering 2.2 hitless innings of relief and earning the win to collect his first championship in three tries over the last decade. Freed meanwhile would play two seasons in Philadelphia and hit .222 in 191 games.

Sources

Baseball-Reference.com

Maxwell Cates, Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) Biography for Grant Jackson

The Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 2nd, 1961

Stan Hochman, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Mar. 15th, 1967

Allen Lewis, The Philadelphia Inquirer, March 7th, 1967

Bill Conlin, Philadelphia Daily News, March 11th, 1969

The Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 17th, 1970

The Mets had lost seven in a row, including the first two games of the series against the Dodgers. Clay Holmes was taking the mound against Shohei Ohtani, who had a 0.00 ERA up to that point in the season. The Mets needed to change that to change their own fortunes, as they had been struggling to produce any offense, to score any runs.

The first inning went quietly for both sides, with a first inning Freddie Freeman single being the only baserunner for either side. In the bottom of the second, the Dodgers got to Clay Holmes, putting two runs on the board. After two outs in the bottom of the second, Dalton Rushing doubled and Hyeseong Kim hit a two run home run to give Los Angeles an early lead. 

It took until the top of the fifth for any meaningful offensive action to happen again. Francisco Alvarez walked, and Carson Benge reached first on a fielder’s choice (and some very questionable non-baserunning by Alvarez). MJ Melendez hit his second double of the game and drove in his first run as a Met, putting the Mets just one run behind the Dodgers. They were unable to capitalize further with two runners in scoring position, a story told all too often during this short season thus far.

It took the Dodgers until the bottom of the sixth to respond. Clay Holmes finally made his exit after five innings with four hits and four strikeouts, making way for Tobias Myers. And Myers gave up a solo home run to Teoscar Hernández on the second pitch he threw, putting the Mets behind by two again.

Shohei Ohtani exited the game after six innings, giving up just the one run on two hits, striking out ten while walking two. The sole run he gave up was his first earned run allowed in 32.2 innings. Blake Treinen came in in relief and the only offense the Mets could muster against him was a Carson Benge double, but he was stranded as so many mets base runners have been this season.

The wheels fully came off in the bottom of the eighth, when Devin Williams came in to relieve Tobias Myers. After giving up two singles and a walk, Rushing took Williams deep for a grand slam, putting the Dodgers well ahead with three measly outs for the Mets to try and make literally anything happen. And to add additional insult to the already added insult, Kyle Tucker hit a solo home run off of the next reliever of the inning, newly recalled Austin Warren. At the start of the inning, Edwin Díaz was warming to potentially come in to lock down the ninth.

But when the top of the ninth started, Kyle Hurt was in the game, his first appearance in nearly two years after Tommy John surgery. Bo Bichette got a one out single, and Alvarez was hit by a pitch. With two runners on, Semien was able to hit a bloop single and drive in Bichette as the Mets second run of the game…in the ninth inning. Fantastic work. But Melendez struck out to end the game with runners on first and second. 

The Mets have been swept for the second time in a row, and are riding an eight-game losing streak. Their offense has been inert, their pitching inept, and it’s added up to absolutely horrific baseball. They should be better than this, and yet here they are, last in the National League East. They have a day off tomorrow before starting a three game series against the Cubs at Wrigley Field. And boy, do they need it.

SB Nation GameThreads

Amazin’ Avenue
True Blue LA

Box scores

MLB.com
ESPN

Win Probability Added

What’s WPA?

Big Mets winner: MJ Melendez, +18% WPA
Big Mets loser: Tommy Pham, -18% WPA
Mets pitchers:-11% WPA
Mets hitters: -39% WPA
Teh aw3s0mest play: MJ Melendez’s RBI double in the fifth inning, +18.7% WPA
Teh sux0rest play: Hyeseong Kim’s two-run home run in the second inning, -18.9% WPA

For the first time in 15 years, the Rays win on Jackie Robinson Day

Donning the light blue Burst jerseys for the first time, Tampa Bay took the field with everyone in uniform wearing number 42, celebrating Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier on this day in 1947. 

Junior Caminero would provide the offense to start, as he hit a solo shot to left field in the third, and provided an RBI groundout in the fifth. 2-0 Tampa Bay. 

Jonathan Aranda provided an RBI double in the fifth, to lift the lead to 3-0. 

Jesse Scholtens got the win, going five innings out of the bullpen while shutting out the Pale Hose with three strikeouts and allowing one hit. 

Jake Fraley homered in the sixth, and in the seventh, Yandy Diaz stroked an RBI double, and Jonny DeLuca hit his second homer of the year. 8-0 Rays. 

Chicago would score three runs in the ninth, but Ian Seymour would hold down the fort as the Rays cruise to the best record in the American League with a final score of 8-3. 

Tampa Bay and Chicago are back at it on Thursday, as Steven Matz and Anthony Kay are the probably starters with a 2:10 EST start time from Rate Field. 

I have been very transparent in my love for these two franchises for very different reasons. For the D-Backs, their 2001 World Series win is one of my earliest and most vivid baseball memories while I got to witness the end of Cal Ripken Jr’s magical career and watch multiple waves of success and failure living in suburban Baltimore as a child and young adult. They’re also similar franchises with young lineups anchored by veterans looking to make it past their larger and better-funded division rivals while residing in two of the most competitive divisions in the sport. Additionally, both franchises feel like they’re at tipping points: the D-Backs have only made it to the playoffs twice during the Hazen-Lovullo tenure despite significant financial commitments while the Orioles have watched their much-ballyhooed prospects stagnate in their development and fail to get over the hump of winning a single playoff game during their contention window. Those kinds of situations mean that every game matters in a way it might not for a Yankees or Dodgers team. So this entire series felt a little like having to choose between my babies where one’s loss is the other’s gain. In fact, before the series my parents asked me who I was rooting for and I responded that I was hoping for “good games and health” both of which I got in spades – other than a broken jaw and some orbital fractures.

Much like the other games in this series, this afternoon was a back-and-forth affair with Eduardo Rodriguez and Kyle Bradish combining for a single clean inning in their 11 innings pitched on the afternoon. The Orioles struck first in the third with consecutive doubles from Coby Mayo and Sam Huff, but the D-Backs quickly responded with a pair of runs in their next half of the inning on a comically bad play by reserve outfielder Weston Wilson. On a deep drive off Adrian Del Castillo’s bat, Wilson sprinted back into the weird cutout in left field and got his glove on the ball, but failed to secure it, crashed into the wall and fell back – Looney Tunes style for a two-run “triple.” It was the opening salvo in what was an excellent all-around effort from the backup catcher who has filled in nicely for the injured Gabriel Moreno. As they have all road trip, the bottom of the order contributed by tacking on another run in the next half inning off back-to-back doubles from Alek Thomas and Jorge Barrosa to retake the lead after the Orioles tied the game in the home half of the third.

The seesaw action continued when Baltimore struck back for two runs off the seemingly unstoppable Jeremiah Jackson who homered for the third time in the series. But it was another short-lived lead as the D-Backs tied and then recaptured the lead with a pair of sacrifice groundouts by Thomas and Del Castillo in the sixth and seventh. The Orioles did manage to claw one run back in the seventh when pinch hitter Leody Taveras plated Gunnar Henderson, but the D-Backs finally found the knockout punch in extra innings when Del Castillo rocketed a two-run homer and Nolan Arenado plated Ildemaro Vargas for a little extra padding.

Unlike the rest of the team, Rodriguez seemed determined to roll the clock back to 2025 when he looked much more like the pitcher who struggled to a 5.02 ERA and 1.542 WHIP than the one who has carried over his success from the World Baseball Classic to the beginning of the regular season. There was always going to be some regression as his 0.50 ERA coming into today looked more like a typo than an actual statistic and was belied by a 3.49 FIP and 3.42 expected ERA. But even that regression wouldn’t have necessarily expected the 33 year old to collect his career-worst whiff rate in a game (5%) and walk four batters, nearly tying his season-worst last year with five free passes. The Orioles’ game plan of waiting out Rodriguez’s changeup proved to be a winning concept that shortened his outing and created plenty of traffic.

There’s no other way to describe this road trip than as a massive success. Across three unfriendly climes against three nominally competitive teams, the D-Backs won three series and were extremely competitive in every game. In their three losses, their run differential was a combined -4. They scored around five runs per game while allowing a little under four a game and found their power stroke in Charm City with six homers in the three-game set. After a much-needed off day tomorrow, the D-Backs return to the friendly confines of Chase Field for the scuffling Blue Jays and hapless White Sox as part of a nice, relaxing homestand. If your confidence was perking up through the first week and a half of the season, this road trip should make it absolutely soar.

LOS ANGELES — Francisco Lindor was fouling off everything Shohei Ohtani was throwing him with a runner on second and two outs in the top of the third inning, the Los Angeles Dodgers holding onto a two-run lead on Wednesday, April 15.

Ohtani threw the New York Mets' franchise shortstop a 98-mph fastball down the middle. Foul.

An 89.1-mph splitter below the strike zone. Foul.

An 85.4-mph sweeper that grazed the top of the zone? Foul.

Then, on the 11th pitch of the at-bat, Ohtani switched up his delivery with a slide step as he blew a 99.6-mph fastball by him for strike three to retire the side and flashed a smile towards Lindor as he walked off the mound.

"That was fun," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. "... I do think that he looks at (pitching) as an art — as Yoshinobu (Yamamoto) does — and craft. It's not just trying to bully guys with a fastball, it's how you set guys up and front-to-back, east-west, and use your entire pitch mix. The best pitchers, in my opinion, do look at it as an art."

Ohtani — who was visibly surprised when Roberts informed the two-way megastar that he wouldn't be in the lineup on Wednesday night — painted a masterpiece with a renewed focus on the mound, striking out 10 in LA's 8-2 win over the Mets to match his most strikeouts in a Dodgers uniform.

Sho 'em. 😂 pic.twitter.com/LzJBfommDe

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) April 16, 2026

Any lingering concerns about Ohtani's throwing shoulder after being hit by a pitch in Monday's game subsided. He didn't allow a single baserunner until MJ Melendez's double in the third, and the only time he was in any real trouble came in the fifth when he walked two and gave up another double to Melendez — this one an RBI ground-rule double that hopped over the wall in right field that put runners on second and third with one out.

But Ohtani put on a show and worked his way out of the jam with a strikeout of Tommy Pham in which his fastball reached 100.2 and 100.3 mph. He topped out one batter later with a 100.4-mph heater that Lindor harmlessly lined out to Teoscar Hernández in left field.

"Considering where the game was at that point, I felt like I just really had to go full throttle," Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton. "And make sure of that, considering about the game's situation."

Usually Ohtani uses the time between innings during his starts to focus on his at-bats, but the extra downtime Wednesday night allowed him to spend more time game planning for the next frame. The result was him feeling easy and loose throughout his entire outing.

Ohtani put a little more polish on his gem in the sixth by striking out the side to end his night on a high note and put the Dodgers in the driver's seat to finish off the sweep.

Here's how Ohtani fared in Wednesday's 8-2 win over the Mets:

Shohei Ohtani stats vs. Mets

• Innings pitched: 6.0
• Hits allowed: 2
• Runs allowed: 1
• Earned runs allowed: 1
• Walks: 2
• Strikeouts: 10
• Pitches thrown: 95
• Strikes thrown: 63

Shohei Ohtani highlights

Shohei Ohtani reaches double-digit Ks for the first time this season 😤 https://t.co/RWiXiCGwERpic.twitter.com/HqAlbOkLaD

— MLB (@MLB) April 16, 2026

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Shohei Ohtani stats, Dodgers vs. Mets highlights